Accused
by AdenaWolf
Summary: Young Justice is on the run from the Justice league. Wait, WHAT! Our favourite team of partners have to escape, evade, and hide from their mentors, the people who taught them everything, plus find out what they did PLUS clear their name. My first fic.
1. Prologue

Accused

**Summary**: The team wakes up in the Watchtower Holding cells. One by one their mentors come in to berate them for their crimes. Wait, _CRIMES_! Yes you heard right, and Young Justice is just as confused as you are. Now, our favourite team of partners have to escape, evade, and stay hidden from their mentors, all the while trying to find out what they did AND clear their name!

**Disclaimer**: Unfortunately, I do not yet have complete dominion over the earth. Until I do, I don't own Young Justice. Or Mission Impossible 4 for that matter.

**Authors Note**: Yes this sounds like GothicRose's idea from Getting Traught. Yes, I did ask for permission to use her general idea. No, it will not be the same thing. Yes, you should go read Getting Traught. No, I don't have any idea how to spell Megan's real name, you know the Martian spelling. Deal. Yes, you will, having suffered through this, read the story now.

**Prologue:**

"We never go to another comic-con again." Declared Artemis as she walked into the cave, the rest of her team in tow.

"Aww, come on guys! It was fun and you know it." Whined Wally from behind the rest.

"How," Aqualad asked, lowering himself onto the couch in the middle of the living room, "was running around in a large gym, while in costume, with a bunch of other people dressed as us or our mentors 'fun'?"

Wally speed over from the fridge (he was hungry. Stupid metabolism.) to right in front of Aqualad. "Because" he explained, crossing his arms and looking his leader in the eye, "WE got most, if not all, costume prizes. Getting prizes is fun."

"Well we obviously got the prizes!" Robin reasoned, raising a sceptical eyebrow above his domino mask, "We ARE the originals. If we DIDN'T get the prizes, it'd be strange."

"Dude, you are so not whelmed" Wally replied, only just barley concealing the laughter in his voice.

"What's a comic-con?" asked Megan innocently.

The rest of the team just stared at her. Except Superboy, who was just as confused as she was, and just slid his eyes to the floor beneath his feet.

"A comic-con, is where a bunch of -how do I put this- um, let's call them 'people with a lot of time on their hands-" started Robin.

"Nerds" coughed Artemis.

"Get together and dress up as super heroes or other characters. Then they go around buying stuff and, well, basically what we just did. You know, the whole costume contests and stuff."

"So we just went to a comic-con? Not just a large gathering?" inquired Megan.

"Yep." Was Wally's reply.

"I can't believe how many people dressed up as Superman." Superboy grumbled.

"I can't believe that we let Wally talk us into going." Artemis said, angrily.

"Actually, I believe that he didn't 'talk' us into going. He merely said that we had to get over to his position right away and that we had to be in costume. If I recall correctly, something about a 'dire emergency'?" accused Aqualad gently.

"It was an emergency!" Wally exclaimed "One:" Wally lifted a finger in the air "Megan and Conner have never before today experienced a comic-con. Two:" He lifted up another finger "the Central City comic-con is the BEST! Lastly, three:" He lifted up a third finger "I didn't want to go in there by my self, and we're supposed to do team bonding stuff for training." Wally, finishing his tirade, seated himself on the armchair at the right hand side of the couch.

"You want team bonding?" Robin asked, "Well, I just figured out how to get Mission Impossible four on the T.V."

"Is that legal?" questioned Superboy suspiciously, "Will we get in trouble with our mentors?"

"Nope!" was Robin's only reply.

As he moved towards the T.V., he motioned his three standing comrades to the large couch Aqualad was sitting on. They all just barely fit.

"Hey Wally, can you pop some popcorn and turn off the lights? And don't even think about eating any of the popcorn; I know how mush you wanted to see this movie and if you come back with only a few kernels of popcorn left for the rest of us, I'll personally make sure you NEVER see the movie" Robin threatened over his shoulder.

"Fine" Wally griped, moving off the chair he was sitting on. Before anyone even noticed he was gone, the lights went off.

"Not ALL the lights Wally" yelled Artemis.

"Um, that wasn't me." Wally called over nervously from the kitchen.

The team froze. The cave never, EVER had a power out, and the only time the lights went off was at night.

"We can't have spent that long a that comic-con" mumbled Superboy, "Robin, can you check the time. Please?"

"Sure thing. Robin replied calmly. "It's 3:47 pm."

"That's definitely not normal" Megan mused.

"And doesn't the cave have back up lights in case of an attack?" Artemis inquired.

Aqualad nodded. "Yes. And the only people capable of turning off both the main lights and the reserve power are-"

Suddenly, a green glowing cloud entered the room. Superboy screamed, clutching his head in agony and falling to the floor. He was instantly unconscious.

That was the team's first clue to be ready for an attack. They never got the chance.

Seconds after Superboy hit the ground, a new, grey mist ate the green one. The team fell to the floor, much as Superboy had, but they remained conscious.

Spasms began to violently shake their bodies, then one by one, they stopped, motionless.

Robin, the last to go, fought of the dark grey lines that threatened to over take his consoiuness. With tremendous effort, he slowly moved his hand to reach the small gas mask in his utility belt.

Halfway there, he saw something that made him freeze in horror.

The last thing he saw before the darkness took over.

A man clad in black, two long pointed ears going strait up from his head, putting large smoke bombs away and pulling out six pairs of hand cuffs.

Batman.

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><p>So how was it? Please review, first story I haven't been forced to make, so any advise from experienced authors is appreciated. Also, any one know where Wally was born lived with his parents? If it's a different city. I need it for future chapters. PM me if you know!


	2. Part the First: Interrogation Megan

**Part the First: Captured**

**Interrogation.**

**Megan**

Megan opened her eyes with a start. She was laying on her back, on the hard, grey floor surrounded by four large grey walls. For what felt like hours, the Martian girl laid still, eyes plastered to the sealing, trying desperately to remember what had happened, or where she was, or both.

Megan bolted upright as memories of the previous night sprang into her mind. Franticly, she turned her head side to side, trying without success to find her friends. She almost immediately stopped, dizziness overwhelming her field of vision. Vaguely she felt a cloud of intense heat all around her. Not quite hot enough to kill her, but still hot enough to hurt. Carefully turning her head, she saw a torch-like light at each of the corners of the room, emitting heat. The torches were each a different colour, red, green, blue, and orange.

"_That explains the dizziness." _She thought.

Trying to fend off the wave of sickness, Megan slowly lowered herself back on the ground and closed her eyes.

"_Come on Megan, think, _She commanded herself, _you can't see anyone else, so they're obviously not in the same room. How do I find them? With this heat, I'll never be able to break out of this room and look. So the only thing left is…"_ Megan's eyes bolted open, a small smile gracing her features. "_Hello Megan*!" _She exclaimed, mentally face palming. "_Try and contact them telepathically." _

Closing her eyes once again, she ventured deep into her subconscious, where her access to telepathy was kept. To her great surprise, she encountered a wall.

The wall was huge. Although Megan couldn't physically see it, she felt its power and strength. She also felt two things that confused her greatly.

One: The familiar and comforting presence the wall gave off.

Two: The five bubbles of different colour that lay beyond the wall, also giving off a familiar, yet troubled, presence.

Megan tried to break the wall. Pounding it with weak psychic blows and leaving Megan exhausted. "_Curse this heat!"_ She thought sullenly.

"_Megan! Your parents taught you better than to curse things!" _A voice scolded.

Megan opened her eyes and looked slowly around the room. Seeing no one, she closed her eyes again. Summoning all her extra strength, she attacked the wall again, this time feeling it begin to crack. Unfortunately, that small crack wasn't enough to topple the powerful wall, and the attack took most of her energy; she was struggling to stay conscious.

"_Tsk Megan. You know, when Superman told me that you'd turned to a life of crime, I didn't believe him."_

Megan furrowed her brow in confusion. _"Superman? Life of crime? Who is that talking in my head?" _

_I told him 'MY niece would NEVER do something like that. She's too good. Too nice. Too sweet. Too INNOCENT. But now I see the truth. You try to break down the barrier I put between you and your friends, the barrier I put up to SAVE you from their influence."_ The voice was angry now. Angry and sad.

Megan thought harder. "_Only one person can speak into my mind, and knows my parents, and know Superman!" _She realized with a shock. "Uncle John" she yelled out load, knowing he would hear her.

"Why Megan?" her uncle asked, coming from the wall and solidifying above her face.

"Why, would you, after I took you to Earth, the place you wanted to go to for so long, why would you turn you back on me? WHY!" John sank to his knees, face covered in his hands as he wept bitterly.

"Uncle John! What going on? Where am I, where is my team? My friends? What's wrong?" Megan exclaimed, feeling panic at the words her beloved uncle had cried.

John stopped crying abruptly. "You know what's wrong. You went from hero to villain in a mater of days. DAYS! And your friends," he spat the word, "Your 'friends' can rot in their cells for all I care. They've done nothing but propel you into the life you're in now."

"Uncle John!" Megan was crying now, eyes large and round, looking like a UFO, the light from the torches reflecting off the wet surfaces, giving her eyes the illusion of twinkling Christmas lights, "What did I do? Did I do something wrong? Was going to the comic con with Wally and the others bad? Why did you say such horrible things about my friends? What's going on?" Megan was sobbing heavily now, shacking with tears. "_Why is this happening? I don't understand. Why is uncle John so angry at me and my friends?"_

Through her tears, Megan saw John rise up off his knees. Steeling his features, he looked into her glistening eyes a deep sadness. The look was quickly replaced with a glare filled with cold, poisonous, hatred.

"What did you do?" he asked in a voice filled with a deadly venom, "Were you raised with such poor morals that you don't know that what you did to those people was WRONG! I can't believe that you would take advantage of me, of my allowing you to come back to Earth with me. And you don't even know WHAT'S WRONG!" He was yelling now, each word dripping with more and more poison. Megan cringed and cried harder.

"At least you have the decency to cry. You aren't totally evil." John sneered.

He turned to walk to a wall. "Just mostly evil." He then passed right through the wall, leaving his niece to cry alone, without the comfort of the closest family she ever had. Her friends were taken from her, her uncle hating her, and her only other family on a different planet, Megan's sobs racked her body violently. Eventually, her sobbing took enough of a toll on her body that she was no longer able to cry, and darkness over took her sadness.

Only when he felt Megan's mind give in to the exhausted state that the crying had forced upon her, did John, truly weep, and he wept almost as bitterly as his niece.

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><p>Just to make sure you know, John is OoC because he's grieving.<p>

*I hate the phase as much as the next girl, and i'll only use it a couple of times, but I wanted to make it sound like Megan.

Oh yeah! Just wanted to say thanks to all those reviewers without accounts cause I couldn't PM you. So, Thx!

Did I live up to expectations? Review to tell me yes or no!


	3. Part the First: Interrogation Superboy

**Wow, lots of reviews! thanks to everyone who reviewed and doesn't have an account!**

**Also, until I conquer the world, I DON'T OWN THIS!**

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><p><strong>Superboy<strong>

Conner was in pain. Terrible pain. As he lay on the floor, all his mind could register was the horrible pain that blanketed his aching body. With a grunt, Conner managed to slowly sit up. He didn't want to open his eyes, for fear of seeing whatever horrible thing his captors where doing, or had done. to his friends. _"After all," _he realized, squeezing his eyes as tight as they could go, _"If I'm in such pain, what are the others feeling?"_

Then he heard a sound that made his heart shatter into millions of tiny fragments.

Megan's voice, weeping.

He heard another voice to, but he couldn't hear exactly what it was saying.

His eyes burst open, only to see that he was in a room with a eerie green glow, and no door. He tired to stand, only to have his legs immediately collapse underneath him. _"Gotta get to Megan." _He thought, _"Gotta help her" _. As his legs didn't seem to be working, he scooted over to the wall that the screams seemed to be coming from. Once he reached it, he rose from his current sitting position, to a kneeling one. With great effort, Conner lifted both of his arms to the wall. Placing his sweaty palms on the wall, he rested.

"_Why is it taking so much effort just to move?" _he wondered, "_And what are they doing to Megan?"_ He had to find out if she was alone. _"There's a time to go in smart, and a time to go in strong. I'm no good to Megan if there is someone else with her, stronger than I am now." _It was a strange concept to him, someone who was stronger than him. _"Maybe the team is with her, and I can only hear her, 'cause she's crying, and when I get through the wall, then I'll find all of them, and we can kick whoever's captured us' butt! Yeah. Then we'll all go home, and we'll watch that movie Robin wanted to, and maybe we'll find another comic-con to go to…"_ Conner's thoughts went on like this for quite some time. He felt comfort in the words, and it gave him a little bit of strength. Taking a deep breath, he lifted his right hand off the wall. The action caused him to fall onto his left side, his head slamming roughly on the ground. "_Oww. Ok, slower this time" _he commanded himself, rising again to his knees. He resumed the position he was in before, facing the wall where he could still hear Megan's cries, both hands on the wall. This time he waited. He heard the voice make one more comment, then Megan stated crying harder. Conner was mad now. All he wanted to do was smash the wall and beat whomever was hurting Megan so much with inches of their life. Slowly, in a attempt to control his anger and as a precaution against falling, he lifted his right hand. He was slowly forming it into a fist, imagining crushing the person who hurt Megan under his powerful fingers, when he hear a voice from behind him.

"Don't even think about it." The voice stated icily.

Conner paused, fist fully formed, preparing to strike the wall. The voice was familiar, but why? Cautiously, he turned his head. Behind him –how had he not noticed **that **before- was a large T.V screen. But what made his eyes almost pop out of his sockets, was the face on the screen.

Superman.

He scowled at the screen, and turned his head back towards the wall.

"Fine suit yourself. But you'll never get to her." Superman sneered.

Conner punched the wall for all he was worth, the impact nearly crushed his hand, and didn't even crack the wall. Conner grabbed his fist in pain, but then Superman's words echoed in his mind_ "you'll never get to her."_ Anger flowed through his body, masking all the pain in this hand. Gluing his bright blue eyes at the wall, he imagined the look on Superman's face when he did smash through the wall. "I can do it!" he yelled, both to ease his nerves and to insult Superman, "Maybe you can't, but I can!" Conner punched the wall with both hands. "I have to! Megan, the team, they need me, and I'm not going to fail them!" Conner was hysterical now.

"Listen to me Super…boy."

Punch.

"You can't get through the wall"

Punch.

"It's filled with small shards of kryptonite."

I DON'T CARE!" screamed Conner, punching the walls with new vigour. "I have to break through, I have to! My team is depending on me and I can't let them down!"

Superman sighed. Although at the moment he had nothing but a burning hatred for the clone, he couldn't bear to see him in such a state. Maybe he'd made a mistake when he accused the kids. Maybe they were innocent. Then he remembered what had been done to the people. All the evidence the league had against them. His hatred came back full force, and he remembered his point of speaking with the clone. Find out why he did it, whom he did it for. Crush his spirits if need be.

"Look," Superman said, ice returning to his voice, "you're no good to your team if you don't have any bones in your hands."

Conner stopped punching the wall. A small crack was beginning to form, but he realized the wisdom in the older mans words. He looked at his hands, they were cut, and bleeding a bit. Conner blinked.

"Now look at me."

Conner didn't move.

"LOOK AT ME!"

Conner flinched when the words hit his ears. His super hearing might have been down, but the words were still loud. Not only loud, but filled with such venom that Conner thought hearing the words might strike him dead right there. Slowly, he turned and looked at the screen.

Superman glared at him with a glare that would have made Batman proud. Conner shivered. _"If he wasn't behind the screen, he probably would have fried my brain out with laser vision" _The thought made Conner shudder in horror.

"Why did you do what you did? Who are you working for? Why did you do this to us after we took you in?" the words were said without any emotion except bitter loathing.

Conner didn't say anything. _"What did I do? Why do I feel so sad about Superman treating me like this? It's not like he was nice to me before, so why do I feel so bad?"_

After a few tense moments in which neither of them spoke, Conner decided to elaborate some of his own questions.

His word choice could not have been worse.

"What did I do wrong? I thought by going with the team on the missions from the past few weeks, I was doing good; helping the world. Was I wrong?" Connor asked politely, feeling total panic at the way Superman reacted to his words. During his little speech, Superman's face had went from the calm, collected look he sported from before, to a twisted mask of horror, bitterness and anger. The cause of such a drastic transformation? Connor, when he said 'past few weeks' he meant 'past six months', the mistake being made by his own confused brain. Superman, who could not read minds and had no idea of Connor's mistake, simply assumed that he meant that he didn't see what was wrong with his actions.

"Of course you where wrong!" the Boy Scout screeched, "Doing good? Helping the world? What did sick twisted program did Cadmus upload into your brain, if you even have one. If they didn't just give you a hard drive. How could you **possibly** think that you were doing good?"

Conner was stunned. If course he had a brain! Why was Superman being so hateful. Conner was struggling to maintain a strait face. All he wanted to do was curl up into a little ball and disappear. He'd never felt this way before.

"You know what," Superman continued, "I never liked you. I knew from the moment I saw you that you were doomed to fail. You were a time bomb, just counting down to an explosion. Now you've exploded, and look at the mess you've made. You're nothing but a common criminal. All muscle, no brain. You know, I'm surprised that your team hasn't dumped you yet. It would be extremely easy too. I know for a fact that Robin has some kryptonite in his utility belt, and you trust them so much. But what use do they have for you? After all, all you ever do on missions is make noise and smash walls. It's surprising that no one has heard you during your **stealth** missions. If someone is going to clone me, they might as well make it a competent clone."

Conner slowly raised himself to his feet, leaning against the wall for support "And what right do you have to say that about me? Where were you when I was learning how to control my strength so that I didn't make noise? Who was the one teaching me to use my powers?" Conner was screaming almost as loud as Superman now. "It was always Black Canary! She taught me everything I know about missions, and if you haven't noticed, our missions go well. I've saved my team at least once, just by smashing walls. My team, my friends, my **family**, they don't need Superman, they just need me. I may be your clone, but the only people I have a **real** relationship is with my family; my family of friends. What did you ever do to build our relationship huh? 'Batman's got that covered.' 'the league will figure something out.'. You never gave me the time of day and now you show up scolding me, as if you raised me!" At the end of his tirade, Conner fell to his knees, consumed by his sadness and feeling vulnerable. After all, he had just spilled out all of his personal feelings to the man who hated him. Conner relaxed into a sitting position, still slightly guarded, but he had hope. Maybe, in this setting, the man of steel would realize his errors concerning Superboy.

"_Maybe." _Conner dared to think.

Superman just smirked at him through the screen.

"And a criminals mouth to boot. No matter what clone, you'll never amount to anything but a weapon. It's only a matter of time until the others see it to." Superman sneered.

Conner's face fell dramatically. _"No! He's lying! Robin's always telling me I'm not a weapon. Aqualad said it was a lie! I'm not just a weapon am I? No not to my team. No! He's lying! Lying!" _The thoughts quickly took another rout. "_What if it's true? What if my team really does think of me as a weapon?" _Conner looked down at his raw fists. He tried to open them, but stopped one he realized that just moving one of his fingers caused pain to rocket all over his body. "_Am I useless now? Will they others get rid of me now? No, they'd never do something like that! Would they?"_

Superman watched the emotions flicker over Conner's face. He smirked, he was going to unleash the blow that would crush the weapons spirit.

"Your useless now. Your -what did you call it again? Oh yes- your **family**, they have no further need for you." He paused, his resolve almost melting as he saw the look of pure horror and heartbreak cross the boys face. But he decided against stopping there, and went for the deathblow.

"Sooner than you know, you'll be rejected and left for dead on some deserted island. After all, your **family**" his sneer crept into his voice at the word family, "has no need of you now. They won't care that you broke your hands trying to free them, all they'll see is a weapon that has lost power. And do you know what you do to powerless weapons?" Superman paused. "You throw them out." The screen shut off with a quite click.

With that final blow resonating in his ears, Conner gave in to his earlier temptations. Curling up as tight as his body would let him, he slid onto the ground.

There, in his custom made prison, Conner cried for the first time ever. He cried and cried, and memories of his team pounded his brain. These only made him cry harder.

He was scared. He was weak. He didn't know what his future would bring. He was oh so very sad.

There was only one time in his short life that he'd ever felt like this before. The first week after he'd escaped from Cadmus, he discovered that the world was a big place filled with lots of mean people. There were nice ones too, but there were lots of mean ones. When he was shopping in the mall with the team, he'd seen something that interested him. Something that Cadmus hadn't taught him about. Popcorn. He saw a kid walk by the store they were in with a bag of some. Curious, he had left the store to ask the child what he had and where he got it. Unfortunately, he'd lost track of the boy, and he wasn't allowed to use his powers in public. He quickly ran over to a man sitting on a bench, but when he'd opened his mouth to ask for directions, the man had yelled at him to go bother someone else. After minuets of trying to find the store on his own –he didn't want to make anyone else upset- he was beyond lost. He found the nearest bench, and sat down, trying to deal with all the new, horrible emotions that plagued him. Moments later, Wally had shown up and sat with him. Conner had been really scared then; he was afraid that his team would be mad at him for wondering off. They were the opposite of mad. After they'd all found him they told him how relived they were to find him. He was a little angry at them for treating him like a toddler, but he was mostly happy that they weren't mad at him. They, mostly due to Megan sensing that he was still slightly traumatized by the incident, had gone to what ever store he wanted to all day.

But this time it was different. They weren't in the mall. His fists were broken. He didn't know where anyone was.

He was alone.

He hadn't been truly alone in his entire life. Not like now. He didn't like being alone. It scared him.

He cried harder as a new piece of reality crossed his mind.

His friends, the only family he had ever known, were gone; and if what Superman had said was true, he would be alone forever.

….

Superman walked into his room at the watchtower, feeling disgusted with himself. Remembering the heartbroken look on Superboy's face, he punched the wall. Hard.

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><p>Wow. That was long. it was 5 fullish pages. Wow. Anyways 1 Superman's a jerk 2 keep in mind that Superboy is really WAY younger than sixteen. in this story he's about 4 or 5 months. yeah, not all that old. That's why some of his thoughts seem younger than his apperance. Also, keep in mind the panic he's in. 3 I probably won't update tomorrow of Monday. Sorry.<p>

Review if you think Superman is mean to Superboy!

Also, go to my profile and vote on the poll there. I guarantee that the question will stir your curiosity.


	4. Part the First: Interrogation Aqualad

**FEB 3RD! THAT'S WHEN THE NEW EPISODE COMES OUT! *fangirl squeal* Any ways, sorry for slow update. I blame homework. Enjoy! And thx to all you no-account reviewers!**

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><p><strong>Aqualad<strong>

Kaldur leaned his head against the wall. He could have sworn he heard banging coming from the other side. That was his first sign of hope. That he was close to his friends. He had scooted over to the wall closest to where the noise was coming from as the banging increased in speed, and then stopped. That was twenty minuets ago; he had lost hope. Kaldur sighed and closed his eyes. He thought of all the things he could have done to prevent this from befalling his team. All the mistakes that he could have done right.

_"Stop. Stop blaming yourself. It's not your fault. The cave was attacked. By someone from the inside. There wasn't anything you could do. You're no good to your team until you stop blaming yourself, and start figuring a way to get out of here."_ Kaldur thought to himself. He sighed again.

Opening his eyes, Kaldur looked –for what had to be the third time- at his surroundings. He was sitting against a large grey wall, surrounded by four identical ones. A grey roof towered over the young Atlantian, and a grey floor lay at his feet. The only hint of colour came from the large fire pit in front of the door. The blue flames leapt upwards with such exuberance, that it would be the human equivalent of joy*. Kaldur wished he could have some of that joy. Unfortunately, with the only exit to the room blocked, no idea where he was, let alone the whereabouts of his teammates, joy was a feeling that was beyond him. Not to mention the ever-rising temperature of the room. _"Soon,"_ the dark thought crossed his mind, _"the temperature will be too much for me. And what happens then?" _The thought alone made him shiver.

Then he heard it. From the wall behind him, sobbing. Faint, almost non-existent, but there. Shifting his head, then closing his eyes once more to try and still the room that began to spin around him, he listened. The sobbing continued to increase in ferocity and volume, but not enough for Kaldur to identify the voice, only that it was male and a member of his team. It gave him a bittersweet feeling. On one hand, he knew that at least one of his friends was close, and- in a manner of speaking- well. On the other hand, his team were tough. What torture could possibly be painful enough to reduce them to tears? The mere image of his teammates writhing with pain, pain strong enough to reduce them to tears, made Kaldur's heart break, and almost reduced him to tears as strong as that of his friend.

Another sound snatched his attention. A buzzing noise that came from above him. The noise made Kaldur jump to his feet in surprise. The motion, however, made his world swim, and the only reason he was able to stay upright was the wall he was currently leaning against. Carefully, he looked up, and the sight he saw made him break into an un-characteristic flabbergasted expression.

Aquaman was standing on a platform, slowly descending from the roof that towered above him.

The sight of his mentor was only half the reason Kaldur was so shocked. The other half was mainly founded by the fact that Aquaman was in this horrible place, where they tortured people mercilessly, and that he appeared to be here on his own free will.

"Maybe he is here to warn me about something. Like one does when a captor is forcing them. Yes, that must be the reason. It's the only one. Unless…" Kaldur furrowed his eyebrows, opting not to shake his head for fear of being flooded by dizziness. "No. That's not only a crazy thought, it's treason! Aquaman would never-" Kaldur's thoughts were interrupted by the abrupt stop of the buzzing noise. Aquaman was indeed standing on a platform, currently a couple of feet out of Kaldur's jumping range when he was healthy. Now? It was almost taunting him.

"So.." Aquaman started, unsure of himself. Sure, he'd interrogated many people before –it was in the job description- but never the boy who'd been so close to him. Never the young solider he'd trained, the one who'd been like a son to him. No one even came close.

"Alright. Let's just cut to the chase. Why did you do, you know, that to those people?" Aquaman asked awkwardly. "I need answers." Aquaman ordered, his furry rising, when Kaldur didn't answer.

Kaldur was confused. His king never spoke like that except when talking to victims. But when he said 'that' he had instantly used the voice he only used for criminals. Top priority criminals.

"Kaldur'ahm!" The king of the sea bellowed "Tell me why you lead your team to do that much horror to people! Tell me why, tell me whom you did it for! Or so help me…!"

Kaldur cringed. His king before had never threatened him. Even after the Cadmus incident, Aquaman had been nothing but patient and he'd listened to all of what Kaldur had to say before imputing. Now, he was barely giving the younger Atlantian a chance to recover from being accused of a crime, and a serious one by the sounds of it, let alone a chance to talk.

"My king," Kaldur said humbly, finally able to get a word in, "excuse me for interrupting, but I know not of the crimes you speak of. Batman hasn't given us a mission in two weeks, and the time has been spent training and bonding at the cave. Nothing else occurred; none of my team would ever do anything to hurt anyone. The whole reason why we became protégés was to protect people. Why would we turn on all we believed in?"

"That is the very question I want answered." Aquaman stated icily, his voice taking on a tone of unsurpassed, cold furry, "You say that you were training in the cave, and as much as I'd love to believe that, I can't. Now again, I order you as your king and your mentor, tell me why you lead your team down a path of destruction and whom you did this for?"

Kaldur was metagrobolized. He slowly blinked, and vaguely noted how warm the room had become, and the sound of a fan coming from the platform where Aquaman was standing.

"You know what the worst part was? Telling your mother that you had turned out like your father." Kaldur's webbed hands smacked loudly against the cement wall.

"You- you told my mother?" Kaldur's dazed, discombobulated mind could hardly fathom the idea. Why had Aquaman told his mother about something that didn't exist?

"Yes." Came the frigid reply, "Yes, how could I not? She cried Kaldur'ahm, she cried for the loss of her son. You made your own mother cry, child! But as they say, like father like son."

Kaldur's expression changed from confused, to horrified in an instant. _"No. It's not possible. I would never make mother cry. Never._"

Aquaman, mistook the origin of the teens horror.

"Hungry for news from home, eh Kaldur'ahm? Well I'll have you know that the resulting blast from Garths anger will take weeks for crews to clean up. Tula, was extremely disappointed, and cried almost as hard and long as your mother."

Aquaman waved his right hand above him in a silent gesture to say that he was done. As the platform started to rise, he looked down at Kaldur's face. Tears were flowing out rapidly, and the young boy seemed to be in a state of shock. Aquaman felt instantly guilty, but reminded himself that it had to be done to protect others.

"Also, as of this moment, you are exiled from Atlantis." Aquaman shouted over the din of the platform.

Kaldur deflated. "_Exiled!" _he exclaimed in his head.

"And, as your exile is induced by the horrible crimes you committed, anyone who spots you in Atlantis is required to either report you to the authorities, or kill you on sight." With that, Aquaman disappeared into the ceiling.

Kaldur tried to quite his frantic thoughts. He started with something simple. _"I wish the room would cool down." _Although the temperature of the room had ceased its climb, it was still unbearably hot. Kaldur took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. _"King Orin didn't even tell me what I'm accused of! What's going on?" _His body froze as a new thought invaded_ "Exiled!_ _That means," _he realized with a jolt, "_that__ means if I go home to see anyone, to explain, I'll be killed! _ The shock of the thought, alone with the deep sadness Kaldur felt because his mentor had all but killed him on the spot, overtook him then, and he lost consciousness, hitting the ground with a hard thud.

...

Aquaman hit his head against the wall multiple times. How could he have banished the boy who'd help save him? To cope, he did what was natural; he started counting all the things he could have done to prevent his protégé from going rouge, all the mistakes that he could have done right.

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><p>*If the fire where a human, just to clarify. I don't know if that's clear or not.<p>

Sorry about the quality of this chapter, especially after the terribly sad last one. there's not alot of info on Aqualad, so i didn't have all that much to work with. Also, I don't think any of my interrogation chapters will be as sad as supervoy's. It's unlikely. Oh, and the really big words mean confused, if you didn't know.

Anywho, review and vote on my poll please!


	5. Part the First: Interrogation Artemis

**Thank you to all the people who reviewed anonymously! And reviewed at all!**

**a/n: Because Robin and Artemis don't have powers, therefore don't have any _real _weaknesses (Like fire, or kryptonite. Being normal doesn't count), their cells look the EXACT same as Kaldur's cell, without the fire.**

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><p><strong>Artemis<strong>

Artemis paced back and forth, grumbling to herself. The chains attached to her legs rattled annoyingly. She unconsciously reached her hand to her back, trying to get an arrow from her quiver. She always polished her arrows while she thought and boy, did she have a lot of thinking to do. That and she might be able to get out of these chains with a really small arrow and some serious luck.

She let out an indignant huff as her hand brushed across empty air.

"_I. Hate. This. Cell."_ Artemis thought bitterly. _Think Artemis, Think. What do you know?_ _I know that only Batman has those kryptonite smoke bombs, but it's possible that someone captured him and took the smoke bombs. That must have been what happened. So then where __**am**__ I? "_

Artemis glared at the ceiling. Since no living thing was here to be mad at, she chose an animate object.

"_But I can't hit the ceiling."_ She strode over to the wall to her left. She lifted her leg behind her, as far as the chain would let it go, ready to lash out her anger against the unsuspecting wall.

Someone beat her to it.

From the other side of the wall, a loud bang was heard. Like someone hit the wall. Hard.

"_Is that? Is that Kaldur's voice? Did he, the stoic Atlantian, just hit the wall? And whose he talking to, and why does he sound so poignant?" _Artemis blinked. _"Where on Earth did I learn __**that**__ word? Oh ya, new school."_

Artemis leaned as hard as she could against the wall, straining to hear as much as possible.

"_If Kaldur is here, then the others might be close! Maybe whomever he's talking to know where they are! Or maybe he's __**talking**__ to them!" _ The thought made delight chorus through Artemis' entire body. But they joy was short lived; abruptly stopped by the loud thud she heard from the other room. The last sound she heard from that room.

Artemis backed into a corner and sat in it. _"Calm down," _ she thought to herself, "_He's not dead. Just injured. Whomever has us here won't kill us. Not without making our mentors suffer by watching us be slowly killed. But they might take us out one by one. Crud." _She pulled her legs up to her torso. _"Don't think like that. Don't. You need to stay calm." _She ordered herself, but she could feel the ever-rising panic that threatened to over take her. _"Remember what Robin said. Get traught, or get dead." _

Pulling her legs up to her face, she rested her forehead on her knees with a sigh. Lifting her head slightly, she stared at her chains, tracing every link with her eyes. Without knowing it, she rubbed her wrists, the place where shackles had been placed earlier. The skin was still slightly raw.

Suddenly, a piece of the floor moved. Artemis blinked rapidly. The grey floor piece shuddered, then fell.

Artemis was too shocked to move, although she vaguely recognized the thought that her ticket to escape was right there.

She also heard a slight buzzing noise, growing increasingly louder. As the piece of floor rose to it's previous altitude, a green hood peaked up above the gap in the floor. Artemis blinked in confusion, then sat up strait when she saw who it was rising from the floor.

Green Arrow.

Artemis' eyes narrowed at the sight of her mentor, out of pure instinct.

Green Arrow raised an eyebrow at the sight, guessing that instinct would have taken over, but still wary. _"She is still a criminal."_ He thought.

"Artemis." he said coldly.

"Green Arrow." She replied, equally cold.

"Okay. So now we're introduced." Green Arrow joked. His humour was instantly squashed by the look Artemis gave him

"Ok, Ok. Bad timing." He took a deep breath. This was going to be hard, and get awkward. " Look, all I'm here to do is ask you a few questions. Answer them, and everything will go smoothly. Don't answer, and I can't promise that.

"I thought the League was against torture." Artemis questioned, her voice cracking slightly with panic and fear. _"Dang it!" _she thought to herself.

Green Arrow resisted the urge to smile. This was what he liked about his kid. In the few months he'd known her, she had never once missed a chance to shoot down a villain's moral. Here she was, probably scared witless, and verbally attacking him. But, it only confirmed his suspicions. If he was now the bad guy, that meant she… _"This is __**not**__ going to be easy." _

"We are. So let's make this easy for both of us." Green Arrow said in a monotone. "Who are you working for? Why are you working for him/her/them? Why did you betray us? After all we've done for you, letting you join the team, keeping your identity a secret. What thought possessed you to turn on us?"

"Look." Artemis replied, shooting icy daggers at Green Arrow, "I have no idea what you're talking about. I joined this team to do something good. To help the world. If it's a crime to do that, then you're guilty to."

Green Arrow sighed, his anger escalating. "If what you did to those people is 'doing good' then I'll become a criminal. Now answer the questions!"

Artemis just stared at her mentor. "_Those people? What is this Robin- hood wannabe talking about?"_

"FINE!" Green Arrow yelled, enraged by her silence, "I didn't want it to come to this, but I took the liberty of telling you mother about your little escapades with your friends. I figured you might care all that much about what I have to say, but I know you care about how your mom views you."

Artemis' mouth fell open. _"My mom? He went and convinced Mom that I did something I didn't! Why would he do that? Of course I care about his opinion! He's only the person who made it possible for me to be on the team! HE TOLD MY MOM!"_

Green Arrow took out a letter from one of the pouches on his belt.

"This is from you mom" he sneered, "I'm going to read it out loud, since I don't believe in letting ** criminals** have privileges.

'Dear, or should I even call you that, Artemis.

I can't believe that you would do such a thing! With all the stuff your dad did, and the consequences that it brought out family, I thought you would know better. I'm crying on the page Artemis.'" Green Arrow looked up to see the reaction from the young girl, slightly turning the page so that she could see it.

Artemis gazed at the paper, longing to told it. She saw the long lines were teardrops had smeared the ink of the pen. She shuddered, thinking of the horrible thing she must have been accused of that made her mom a) hand write a letter, b) made her cry.

"No, no, no, no, no." She mumbled softly to herself, fighting the tears that threatened to spill.

" 'These words are so hard for me to say, but you need to hear them. I'm so disappointed in you. After hearing about your sister, I almost lost the will to live. But you kept me alive. I had to make sure that you didn't turn out the way everyone else did. When you joined the team, I thought that my goal was complete. But now, now you mentor shows up at my door and tells me that the only child I have left, the only one in my life that I can freely love, that she's turned away. Why, Artemis? How could you? Where you trying to break my heart? Well, mission accomplished. My heart has shattered into tiny pieces. Did you even care about what I thought? Obviously not, since you didn't tell me anything! I could have helped you out. I could have stopped this. I got out of my life of crime, I could've helped you and your friends do the same! But it appears as though you didn't even think of considering me. You obviously don't love me enough to tell me these things.

Goodbye Artemis, I don't think I want to see you again, so this is the last you'll hear from me. I won't kill myself. I want to but I wont. I don't want to give you the satisfaction.

I still love you,

Paula Crock'"

Green Arrow looked up from the letter. The sight he saw almost broke his heart. It didn't, because, in a twisted way, he thought the girl looking up with pure terror in her eyes was getting what she deserved.

Artemis, for her part, was totally filled with despair. She looked down at her chest, looking to see if there really was a knife piercing her heart. But there wasn't. She gripped her legs close to her body and began to sob so heavily that she fell backward, hitting her head against the corner.

Green Arrow decided to leave, not wanting to hurt the girl who had become like a daughter to him any more than he had.

Artemis heard the buzz of the platform as it was lowered, but the sound didn't register.

"No!" she screamed between sobs, "No mom! It's not true! I didn't do it! I promise! I didn't, wouldn't, couldn't do anything that would hurt you! I never would do that!" She sobbed harder.

"I still love you. I didn't do it. I still…"

Those were the words she repeated, over and over, hopping that maybe, MAYBE he mom would hear her and believe her. Maybe then everything would go back to normal. The thoughts only made her cry harder.

"I still love you."

…

Green Arrow emptied his quiver, shooting at target after target After endless target., imagining himself as the bull's-eye.

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><p>Did I make you cry? 'Cause I almost cried writing this. Of course water damages computers so I didn't.<p>

Green Arrows last little bit was supposed to be that me was mad at himself for hurting Artemis. Just incase it was unclear.

Anywho, Review! and I added new poll options on my poll so VOTE!

Bonus: If I get 100 reviews before they escape, I'll give a hint as to what they did.

Thx!


	6. Part the First: Interrogation Kid Flash

**A/N: Okay, so some people made some comments that I feel the need to explain to the general populace. This one's from JadeDragon220 and it's about why the mentors are so hard on YJ : "Aw, man, this killed me. I kinda hate how no ones telling them what they did, or even letting then try to explain. Although, to be fair they're probably so shocked and hurt they aren't thinking straight. Yeah, I almost cried." She's exactly right. The mentors are in shock, so they're not thinking clearly. Now one from bookworm900603 (it's not the entire review, but I want to get it out of the way): "Why hasn't J'onn looked in their minds yet to see that they are innocent?" Do you remember the episode of the justice league 'A Better World'? In it Batman asks John to read 'other dimension J'onn' to see if he's telling the truth. 'normal J'onn' replies that Martians don't do that to one another. So that's why he didn't read Megan's mind. Also, if it's not clear, the interrogations take place about 1-2 seconds apart, so J'onn isn't present to read the others' minds. By Artemis' he's already crying his eyes out. Just in case it wasn't clear before. Oh, and just so you know (I realize that I haven't covered this), the team is fully in uniform.**

**Lastly, thx to all you anonymous reviewers who I can't thank by PMing!**

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><p><strong>Kid Flash<strong>

Wally grunted. With tremendous effort, he lifted his head so that his chin was resting on the cold floor. Taking a deep breath, gradually moved his arms so that they were in parallel to his face, forming fists with his hands. He chuckled to himself as he imagined the birds eye view of his current position. Wally was lying on his stomach in the middle of the floor. Around him are four walls, in the most boring grey colour known to man. The only thing unusual about the room was the four, blue lamps lining the area where the walls meet the ceiling. A strange blue light beat down on the young speeder, increasing the gravity of the room, and pining the boy to the ground.

_"Gravity."_ thought the teen, "_I've never liked gravity. Wait! Where did whoever capture us get gravity lamps? I don't even think the league has gravity lamps! The LEAGUE! No, they do. They got them after the __Thanagarian thing. Besides, bad guys always get the cool toys.…__ I hate gravity lamps." _

With those thoughts rampaging in his head, Wally pulled his arms backwards, so that his fists were beside his chin. Slowly, he pushed up, so that his chest was in the air, like a cat stretching at dawn. Wally's breathing was now laboured, but he kept himself up. Painstakingly, he made his legs lift up his other half, so that he was elevated on all fours.

"_Man! That was harder than I thought it would be." _Wally realised the breath he was holding, although he couldn't remember holding it in the first place, and focused on not falling.

That was when he heard it. A dull thud coming from the wall on his right.

Carefully placing one arm in front of the other, he shuffled to the wall. When he got there, he was exhausted and panting.

"_What could have made that noise?" _he wondered, turning his head so that his ear was plastered against the wall, straining to hear what was happening in the other room.

_"No." _was the astonished thought that came to his mind, his emerald eyes doubling in size. _"No. I can't be hearing right. It's not possible."_

_ "Artemis is crying." _

Wally's face paled, highlighting the freckles on his cheeks. For all his annoyance with the blond archer, he hated hearing her sound so despondent.

_"Is she yelling? Why is she crying? Our captors… The couldn't have…" _Wally used all his extra strength to push harder against the wall. He could make out some words between the heavy sobs of his teammate, and what he heard made his eyes narrow and his body vibrate with anger.

"No… Not true… I didn't do it… Promise… Didn't… do anything… I would never…" That was all he heard.

The last screams of his teammate.

_"What are they doing to her? They're torturing her! She didn't do anything! Monsters!" _the angry thoughts pulsed through his brain.

"Leave her alone!" he tried to yell through the wall, but the sound came out as a husky whisper. Wally inhaled, filling his diaphragm with air.

"Leave" he freed his captured air in one shout before inhaling again,

"her" the shaky shout streamed from his mouth and he took a final shallow breath,

"alone!" he yelled, hoping that his please had reached the other room. _"But," _his super-speeded brain contemplated "_if they do hear me, and they stop, they'll most likely come to me." _

Wally mused over this for a bit. "_It's worth the risk. Artemis never cries so what ever they did must have hurt her bad. I don't want them to hurt her anymore than they already have. Whoever 'they' are. Hey!" _Wally's thought quickly took on a more cheerful path, "_If Artemis is in the room to my right, then someone must be in the room to my left! That is, if there is a 'room to my left'." _

He decided that there was. Using one of his feet, he pushed against the wall in order to turn himself in the right direction. The young speedster hesitated.

"_It took so much effort just to get over here from the middle of the room. How on earth am I gonna get from here to there when the distance is doubled?"_

Wally's eyes brightened as he thought of a solution. Smiling a sly smile, the mischievous teen repositioned himself so that he was lined up with the wall. He then flattened himself on the ground. Curling is right arm underneath his stomach; he used his left arm to push off from the wall. The action only gave him a little momentum, but it was enough to keep start him off.

He rolled across the floor, slowly but surely, until he gently smacked into the wall on the other side of the room, face up. Unfortunately, he found getting to his previous position almost impossible. He stared at the ceiling, trying to make his world stop spinning. After what seemed like a lifetime to the impatient speedster, his point of reference was clear enough that he could clearly see the bland grey ceiling above him.

"_These people need a new interior decorator."_

Craning his neck, Wally saw that he was only a few feet from a corner. He pushed himself towards it.

Finally reaching his destination, he lifted himself into a sitting position, using the wall as a support.

"_I loath these lamps. My head feels like it's going to be squished into my neck." _he thought, glaring at the lamps.

While he was sending daggers at every lamp in the room, he noticed that a large sheet of glass was being lowered into the room. He blinked when the lamps on the other side of the sheet shut off.

Wally sighed, relishing the lessened gravity that he was experiencing, until the lights on his side of the clear barrier glowed more brightly and gravity was restored to its previous intensity. Wally scowled.

Suddenly, a red streak appeared behind the screen, startling Wally for a brief second. If he hadn't been sitting against the wall, he would have fallen over from shock.

"_What on EARTH is He doing here!" _Wally thought, knocked for six*.There, standing behind the screen, was Wally's greatest hero.

Flash.**

For what felt like forever to both speedsters, they stared at each other. Flash looked into his apprentice's clear, confused green eyes, and thought for a brief second, he thought he might be wrong.

"_He looks so perplexed." _reasoned a quiet voice in his head, "_Maybe they're innocent. But all the evidence! It's not possible."_

Wally was baffled. His mind drawing a conclusion pretty fast, he did the first thing he thought of to break the ice.

"The league needs a new interior decorator."

Flash just laughed.

"Even when the charges against you are piled high against you, you still manage to crack a joke."

"Charges?" Wally asked, pleased at the sight of his uncle laughing, but equally disturbed by the statement.

"Yes." Flash replied, his voice dropping to such a low octave that Batman would be proud, " You know, the charges about what you did to those people." the white openings that served as Flash's eyeholes narrowed.

"Those charges."

Wally tilted his head, much like a puppy that misunderstands a command, his green eyes focused. He tried to remember hurting anyone, and couldn't. Anyone who hadn't shot first anyway.

"Do you mean the bad guys we take out on missions? 'Cause they shot first." he asked his uncle.

Flash sighed "No Wally," was his only reply, voice still dark, "not them. The innocent people whose lives you and your team ruined. Those people."

Wally shrunk back into the corner, trying desperately to become part of the wall. _"I've only ever heard that tone once before," _the horrified thought crossed his mind _"and I've never wanted to hear it again. Especially not directed at me."_

Flash took his nephew's silence both as confusion (_He's wondering how I found out)_, and as blatant disregard to his actions(_And he obviously doesn't deny it)_.

"Wally how could you! Those people!" the words were said so quickly, that only a speedster would understand them, "After all me and Iris have done for you? You wouldn't believe what she said when I told her about-"

He was interrupted by what sounded like thunder.

"There's no thunder in space!" Flash cried, his tone lightening for a moment, "Wally! When was the last time you ate?"

"Um.. when I was at the comic-con. Before I was brought here. I don't know how long ago that was…"

Flash sighed again. There was a streak of red, and suddenly an energy bar was placed in front of Wally's still form.

"How did you…?"

"There's a teleporter in your cell. It only works for inanimate object, and it's on the roof. Anyways," Flash said, his tone dropping once again. Not as much, for the sight of Wally devouring the bar like he would never see food again lifted the older speedsters spirit greatly, but still a noticeable change from his usual happy tone, "you know what she said? She said 'no. it's not possible. Wally would never do those horrible things.' And you know how I responded?" Flash was close to tears, his voice wavering slightly, "I.. I didn't have anything to say. I explained the evidence against you, and I told her how we'd tried to prove it wrong! But.. we.." clear tears were streaming down Flash's downcast face but he made no move to wipe them away, "we couldn't! Iris, she… she just looked at me. Like I was some sort of monster. There was nothing I could do to comfort her! Do you know how hard it was for me to just stand there? With no way to comfort her? How could you Wally? HOW? Even if you're team had gone along with it, you didn't have to! You could have just said no! You could have come home! But you didn't. You just went with the crowd."

Wally was taken aback. _"Evidence? Evidence of what? I haven't been out of the mountain with my team in weeks! What did we do?" _He decided not to voice his questions, thinking it would only add fuel to the fire.

"Uncle Barry listen. I have no idea what you're talking about. Just hear me out," he quickly said, halting the question that he saw forming on Flash's lips, "Do you remember my first hostage mission as Kid Flash? The one where the building fell down on top of us? That lady we were rescuing, she broke her leg, remember? Remember what I did when we found her under the rubble?"

"You threw up"

"Ya," Wally laughed hollowly, "I did. And then there was the time where that apartment lit on fire. We were helping the firemen get some of the occupants out, and we walked into a room and there was little girl sitting near her mom. The girl had some pretty bad burns, and she was so confused as to why her mom wasn't moving. The door fell down while we were trying to calm her down so we could get her out remember? Do you remember what I did to calm her down while you worked on creating a hole that was big for us to get through but not so big to make the whole building fall down?"

"You picked her up and you gave her the extra chocolate bar that you keep for emergencies." Flash mumbled, confusion lacing his voice, "You pretty much became her personal body guard until she was in the ambulance. Then you threw up. Twice." Flash smiled at the memory.

Wally nodded, then grimaced as his world ran circles in his vision.

"Exactly. You know me Uncle Barry! You know what I can and can't do. I can't even see someone break their leg without feeling sick to my stomach! And you think I capable of 'ruining someone's life'?" Wally shouted, angry now that the words were out. "And what were you doing to Artemis? Whatever we did it can't be so bad as to-"

"Can't be that bad? Can't be that **bad**! It is Wallace! What you did is that bad! I don't know what's happening with Artemis, but whatever it is she probably deserves it! **As does the rest of your delinquent team!**"Flash regretted the words as soon as he said them. The forlorn look that had encompassed Wally's face made him feel more guilty.

"Wally, I didn't-"

"Get. Out." Wally growled, tears running down his face. "Now."

Flash took two steps back, surprised.

"You sound just like your father" he remarked sadly before turning and running off.

Wally collapsed, hitting his head against the floor. His uncle's last statement rang in his ears. Laying face down on the floor, the emotions of the past events finally caught up to him, and he wept.

He wept for what he'd heard; for what he'd said.

But mostly, he wept because he knew that what ever someone had convinced his uncle that he'd done had all but killed the people he was closest to.

…

Flash stopped his running when he was at the evidence room. Hastily wiping his tears on his sleeve, he started to look through the crime files. He knew what he would find, but he was sure that he was missing something.

The key to his nephew's innocence.

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><p>Wow. Longest chapter in this story so far. 6 pages. It took me two days to write, and it's not even that sad! *Sigh* Wally is a hard character to write in a serious situation. Anywho, was it good? And for those of you who are waiting for Robins chapter, don't worry, there is a reason that I left it until last.<p>

Trivia: This is the earliest in the day that i've updated. it's almost 4:00 pm here, and I usually update at like midnight.

Also, with regards to my poll, if you voted on the first one please vote again.

*means confused

** I was gonna right "Santa clause. I mean Flash" just to break my tradition, but I decided not to. =P

NOW FOR THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR! Thanks to Ravenhearst posting somehwere around 13 reviews, YOU GET YOUR HINT! DRUMROLL PLEASE! *drum-roll*

YOUR HINT IS...

THEY DID MORE THAN ONE THING!

and these are connected into a bigger crime!

review and vote on my poll please!


	7. Part the First: Interrogation Robin

Guess what! we have come to the final interrogation. Sorry to make you wait so long. Without further ado. *drumroll* Part the First: Captured- Interrogation Robin!

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><p>Robin<p>

Dick huffed in frustration. Putting on his best batglare, he sat in silence, staring at the small pedestal in the middle of the room. He reached down to touch his chained ankles, rubbing the spot where the metal met skin, his previous attempts at escaping having worn off the cloth. Leaning forward further, he began to trace the links in the chains connecting his feet to the floor. He grimaced with annoyance when the cuffs on his wrists connected with the cuffs on his ankles. With a angry sigh, Dick lay down onto his back, and then sprang up to his feet.

"_I hate chains." _ Dick thought gloomily to himself, walking toward a wall.

Dick leaned against the wall, his shoulders being the only part of his body that could touch, and his training kicked in. He looked around the grey room, and thought of every cell he'd ever been held captive in.

"_If I can find out who uses cells like these, then I can find out who's holding me and the team here. Wait, why do villains personalize their cells? That's just weird. But, I guess it's a good thing in this situation. Now, who __**doesn't**__ decorate their cells? Scratch that, who paints their cells grey?"_ Dick pondered this for a bit, until the revelation hit him.

"_I've seen blueprints that match the design of this cell!" _He realized, panicrising in his mind, "I'm being held by the Justice League."

The words only came out as a whisper, but it was enough to shake Dick to the bone. "This must be one of the special cells for if some of the league went rouge! That would explain why I'm not with the others. But why would the league capture us?"

As Dick thought, he rested his head against the wall, turning it slightly so that his ear was resting on the flat surface. The feeling of panic continued to rise.

"_It just doesn't make sense!"_

Sliding down so that he was sitting again, Dick tried to calm himself.

"Come one Dick!" he whispered to himself, "Pull yourself together. Get truaght or get dead. Well, maybe not dead, but if you and your team are gonna get out of here, you need to stay calm. You're the only one who knows how the cells work, so you need to keep a level head!"

He took a deep breath. Then another. Slowly, he managed to calm himself down considerably.

"_I wonder who's in the cell next to mine?" _

He shifted position so that he was resting on his elbow, to better push his ear against the door.

"_If I'm lucky, whoever's in there will make some noise. But maybe I should be the one who tries to contact them. No, the league knows that I know how to get everyone out; they're probably filming me right now. It's pointless though, since they **did **take both my gloves, and my utility belt, and the lock pick I keep in my shoe. But better be safe than sorry." _

Suddenly, a dull thud sounded on the other side of the wall. Dick thanked his training then, knowing that to any other human -without super hearing- the noise would have been inaudible.

"_But they weren't trained by one of the most paranoid ninjas on the face of the earth!" _Dick thought triumphantly, a small smile on his face. But the smile quickly faded when he didn't hear anything else. He tried to push harder against the wall, but his chains restricted him.

"_Drat"_

His hope revived when another thud made it's way through the wall. But, seconds after all noise had stopped, Dick's training kicked in again. Someone was above him. He stood up, trying to think of who it could be.

The answer came to him so fast that Wally would have been proud.

Batman.

"You can come down now." Dick called over his shoulder, "I know you're up there."

There was a whoosh from behind him, and Dick knew his mentor had landed.

"I'm very disappointed in you Dick." the monotone voice of his mentor boomed behind him, but Dick could hear anger and hurt in the voice as well.

"If this is about me and Wally painting smiley faces all over the batmobile, it was all Wally's idea."

"It's not about that."

Dick felt the glare his mentor was giving him burn holes into his skull. _"I'm so glad he doesn't have laser-vision"_

"So what is it about?" Dick cautiously inquired.

"It's about what you and your team did." Batman's voice lowered to a level considered dangerous even to Dick. He quickly turned around, not wanting to anger his partner further.

"Um, sorry to be lacking info, but exactly what did we do?" Dick asked, raising an eyebrow above his mask.

Batman's eyes narrowed further, becoming no more than miniscule white slits on black cloth.

"How could you not know?" Batman's tone was cold with fury, " I thought you knew better than to lie to me!"

Dick was mystified. "_What? Bruce knows that I would never lie to him! Especially about something important!" _

Bruce saw Dick's perplexed expression, but decided to continue.

"You're the only one who can you know. The only person in the world who could successfully lie to me. You're also the only person who would have been able to commit those crimes. You were the only one able to get your team the information they needed." Batman paused to let his words sink in.

Dick's eyes went wide with horror. _"Crimes! What could he be thinking?" _

"Bruce… what reason do I, or the rest or the team for that matter, have to turn to a life of crime? You're the world's greatest detective, what would our motive be? Life is good, we've got a team, we go on missions all on out own, we have a chance to step out of the shadow of our mentors and become individuals! Why would we throw that all away?"

"That's what I was wondering." the Dark Knight stated, "But I think you just filled in that piece of the puzzle. You need to step out of our shadow, and how better to do that then turning against everything we believed in. Using the very skills we taught you to do the thing we hate. It would be the perfect independence scheme."

"Bruce." Dick breathed in revulsion, "You know that's not what I-"

"They would be so disappointed in you."

"Who?"

"Your parents."

Dick all but fell forward onto the ground. His mind drew a blank; he was so horrified at the very mention of his parents being mad at him. Dick opened his mouth to say something then closed it without a word. They just stared at each other; Dick to stunned with pain to say anything, Batman waiting to see how his protégé would respond.

After a few tense moments, Dick decided to break the ice. His method, however, was slightly unorthodox.

"Yours would be to."

Batman raised both his eyebrows, a movement that only Dick could have caught, beneath his cowl.

"How so?" he asked simply.

"You accuse me without any evidence. How would they feel about that, huh?" Dick finally lost his nerve as the words came out, tears falling freely from beneath his mask.

Batman exploded, "We searched for **four** months, Richard! Four months! None of us wanted to believe it; we all thought someone had gotten something wrong! They used the moves that you've only learned from training! They had all the knowledge that can't be copied! We waited for the criminals to mess up, but they never did! We have eyewitnesses, DNA, security tape, anything and everything that proves your guilt! But you still wont admit it! What more do you want us to do?"

Dick's legs gave out, forcing him into a sitting position. He put his hands to his face, before answering Batman's question with three words:

"Have some faith."

The broken words came out as a choked sob. Noticing his mentors questioning look, Dick tried to control his voice before continuing, "You trained us. You taught us everything we know, know more about us than any living-" Dick's voice cracked as he said the word, and he took a deep breath to calm himself, "any living person on the face of the earth. Even with all the evidence, stop and think. You didn't even have a motive before a few minuets ago. Think about it. Have faith in your partners." Dick, upon finishing his tirade, looked up hopefully at his mentor. Batman just stared down at him, eyes narrowed, cape surrounding his entire body, and voice cold. He walked over to Dick, stopping just a few feet in front of him and looking strait down.

"Maybe the press was right when I took you in. I should have returned you to that orphanage; both of our lives would have tuned out better that way."

With these parting words, Batman jumped up, landing in the rafters above and disappearing.

Dick moved one of his hands to try and wipe the fast flowing tears that were escaping from his eyes and running down his face. He cringed when he heard the chain rattle, and pounded his fists down in anger. That was when he noticed it.

"_Is that a…"_

Dick leaned down, trying to get a better view of the small, slender, silver object that lay were Batman had stood only moments ago. He smiled when he realized what it was.

The special bobby pin that he used to pick locks.

"_So Batman __**does**__ have faith in me. He thinks I'm innocent!" _Dick's smile faded as quickly as it appeared. "_But if he didn't give it to me directly, that means I'm being watched. Better make sure suspicion doesn't fall on Batman. The league can't know that he gave this to me._"

Dick leaned back, head touching the wall, and summoned tears again. He may have been happy that Bruce believed in him, but what he'd said about his parents still stung like lemon juice in a open wound.

So Dick cried, both with happiness, and deep sadness.

…

Batman stormed through the hallways of the Watchtower, other heroes literally parting to create a path for the brooding bat. Stopping when he reached his destination, he was visibly surprised to see Flash standing there. In the evidence room. Holing the folder of evidence that they'd used to convict the kids.

"You're not supposed to be in here." Batman stated.

"Neither are you." Flash replied nervously.

They both stared at each other, not knowing what to do. Until a call echoed throughout the tower.

"Will J'onn, Superman, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Flash and Batman please come to the main briefing room." The automatic voice of Red Tornado called over the intercom.

Batman and Flash looked at each other, then hurried off the see what could possibly make this day any worse.

* * *

><p>Well? How was it? Was it worth the wait? I think I'm getting better at keeping the characters from going OoC, but how's my story writing getting? Also, the poll is still up, so hurry and vote before you find out what they did and say "Man, I wish I had voted". Review please, it make me happy. And I write faster when I'm happy!<p>

Now that the interrogations are over, the fun can begin!


	8. Part the First: Plans

Alright, here we go. The longest chapter I've ever written! Thanks to all the annonymous reviewers!

Now before I start, I want to clarify something. As far as pairing go, I'm only having a bit of Supermartian (Megan will kiss Conner on the check in one chapter) and a bit of Spitfire (as in, they won't hate each other all the time.) This is gonna be mostly family and Friendship, so only the pairings that are above will be included.

* * *

><p>Part the First: Captured<p>

**Plans.**

Megan slowly opened her eyes, feeling like her eyelids weighed a ton. She took a shallow breath, the warm air drying out her throat as she inhaled.

"_Where an I? What happened? Where's the team?" _she thought groggily, closing her eyes to try and remember. After several minuets the realization came to her, causing her eye's to jolt open, and her body become tense.

"_I'm at the Watchtower! Uncle John put a barrier into my mind! And he was so disappointed in me, but he wouldn't tell me why."_ Megan thought gloomily,_ "I'm so weak, so tired. I don't think I cam sit up, but maybe I can see if the barrier is still there." _Closing her eyes tightly, she pulled up all of her reserve strength. She accessed her mental powers, and was very relived to see that there was no barrier.

"_Uncle John must be sleeping, or he must have had something better to do than keep up a barrier in my mind."_ Megan thought, the neutral words stinging for reasons she did not know.

Taking a deep breath, she reached past where the barrier had been, and mentally approached the five multicoloured bobbles that were the mental presence of her friends.

The Green bobble and the Yellow bobble appeared to be melting, the Red bobble was slowly dripping, and the Blue bobble and the Black bobble were calm.

"_Conner and Kaldur are unconscious,"_ Megan noted_, _"Artemis and Wally seem to be sad, and Robin looks…" Megan paused, trying to find the right word for her friends' emotions_, _"slightly less than traught."

Megan debated over herself whom to contact first.

"_I could contact Robin first. Since he seems to be the most calm. But Artemis and Wally are heartbroken; maybe it would make them happier if they knew how everyone was. But I wouldn't know how everyone was until I contacted the others. Conner and Kaldur are going to be the hardest to contact, since I have to wake them up. They'll take the most energy, and if I do them last I might not be able to wake them."_ Doing a last minuet inventory on her strength, Megan decided to wake Conner first, then, once he was awake, wake the others at intervals of a few seconds. Her hope was that when she broke through the thickest head, she would still have enough energy to contact the others.

…

Batman and Flash walked into the briefing room and took their seats. The other mentors trickled in slowly. When they were all seated, Red Tornado spoke.

"Black Canary wished to know how the interrogations went."

From a dark corner of the room, Black Canary walked stoically into the centre of the room. Only her pick, puffy eyes and the tear tracks running down her face broke her indifferent mask.

"I need to know," she said in a broken whisper, "I may not be their mentor, and I know that only the mentors are allowed to see the interrogation videos, but… I need to know the state they're in. I just…" She started sobbing so deeply that she couldn't continue. Green Arrow walked over to her and sat her down in the empty chair next to him.

"If you're up to it," he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, "then I'm sure you can watch." He shot a pleading glance at Batman, who nodded.

"We should start now." Superman commanded gently. "But brace yourselves, if yours went as badly as mine did, this isn't going to be pretty."

So the eight heroes tensed and watched as a video screen was lowered into the room. Megan's startled face appeared on the screen, and looked wildly around. John told the other mentors what he said into her mind as they watched her expression turn from startled, to scared, to confused, to miserable. Halfway through, John began to cry. Immediately as John left the screen, his final words to his niece drowned out by her sobs, Conner's face appeared. Superman placed his head in his hands, not wanting to re-live the torture he had put this child through.

"I'm sorry," he said when he felt the cold glares his comrades were giving him, "I let my temper get a hold of me. If I could take back every single word I told him, I would."

Conner's cries were the last thing they heard before Kaldur was shown, sitting despairingly against the wall with his eyes closed. During the play back of the interrogation, Aquaman turned his head away from the screen, unable to face what he'd done to the poor boy without breaking into tears. In the second before he hit the ground, the scene changed to show Artemis curled up in a ball, obviously fighting panic. Green Arrow slunk down in his seat, wishing that the floor would swallow him up. As her frantic pleas rang in the ears of the other heroes, the view was abruptly switched to that of Wally sitting up on the ground. Flash's hands immediately began to shake, faster and faster until they were no more than a bright red blur. Clasping them together in an effort to control himself, his whole body began to tremble. The screen made one final switch, showing Dick facing the wall. Batman remained calm during the playback, but inwardly he was distraught. Even knowing that he'd given the boy a chance to redeem himself, the world's greatest detective hated himself for causing so much pain on the boy he'd come to love as his own son.

They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a very long time after the video's ended. It was Black Canary who finally broke the ice.

"So what now?" she asked, barely able to contain the fresh tears that threatened to flow.

"What else can we do?" asked John, "We've already broke their spirits, and they still won't tell us what they did."

Superman sighed, he'd been the one to find the first shred of evidence, and he'd been the one making decisions ever since.

"Obviously, Flash's idea to let them tell us on their own to 'lessen the sentence' didn't work, so now we try it my way." He stated angrily.

Superman was taken aback by the horrified stares that he got from every person in the room. It took him a couple of seconds before he realised what they thought he meant.

"Oh no! Not anything physically damaging! That's not what I meant at all! I meant that we should tell them what they did and demand that they tell us why. Besides," he stated sadly, "I think we've hurt them enough."

Nods of approval came from everyone but Flash and Batman.

"I don't know Clark." Batman said, "I don't think they know anything about the crimes."

"Ya" Flash agreed, " They all seemed to genuinely believe that they were innocent. I've interrogated enough people in my 'day job' to know what a falsely accused person looks like."

"But we all know they did it Barry! We have enough evidence to convict all of them ten times over!" Green Arrow yelled.

"And," Aquaman stated quietly, "that could just be your relationship with the kids talking. You've always been involved with all the kids' lives, it might be that your feelings are overtaking your common sense."

"He's right." Superman said, "You and Bruce may be the ones with the most experience as far as interrogations go, but you're also the ones with the strongest relationship between all the kids."

"Look," Batman said darkly, "Robin is the only one who can lie to me. The other can't. They have to be-"

"Bruce, as much as we all want to believe that, we simply can't." Superman stood up, placing both hand on the table in the middle of the room in an attempt to control his temper, "The evidence is more than enough to convict them, and evidence doesn't lie. Tomorrow morning we tell them what they did and the consequences of it. As much as I hate myself for saying this, they are going to jail. Whether or not they confess. It's a bitter truth, but one we have to except."

"At least let them see each other!" Flash exclaimed, rising as well.

"No!" Green Arrow screeched, jumping up with such force that his chair fell to the ground.

"GA is right." Aquaman stated calmly, rising to his feet.

"Letting them see each other will be a mistake." John continued the broken sentence, also standing.

"If they're allowed to see each other, the chances of them telling us anything will decrease! And it's not like we owe them! We are going to do it in the same manner as the interrogations, one after the other so that they can't contact each other between the questions." Superman finished, earning nods of approval from all but two of the mentors.

"But they're probably panicked and worried about each other! You heard Wally; they're probably all like that! We-" Flash was stopped mid rant by a gloved hand placed on his shoulder. He turned around to see Batman standing beside him.

"It's a lost cause Barry." The Dark Knight whispered at a low volume so that the other heroes wouldn't hear, "These imbeciles are convinced that the kids are guilty." Flash blinked when he realized that Batman's mouth didn't appear to be moving, "Meet me after the meeting in the cafeteria. I need to know what you found in the evidence room."

Batman glared at each of the other mentors, before speaking.

"If **anyone** talks to their protégé alone, they'll suffer a fate **worse** than death." With those words, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving everyone speechless.

…_.…_

"_Conner_?" Megan called gently into the slumbering mind of her friend, "_Conner, please, wake up!"_

"_Megan?"_ Conner's groggy voice entered her head_, "Megan! Are you all right? Are you hurt?"_

"_I'm fine Conner, how are you?"_

"_I'm, umm…"_

"_Conner? Megan? What's going on?" _the tired voice of Kaldur asked.

"_Hey Kaldur. I'm not sure what's happening, but I'm glad that you're okay. You are okay right?"_

"_Yes Megan. I'm fine. Where are the others?"_

"_Kaldur!_ Artemis' voice entered the conversation,_ "You're alive!"_

"_Yes Artemis. I'm alive. But I don't know why I wouldn't be."_

"_It's a long story."_

"_Artemis! Are you okay? Anything hurt?"_ Wally's cheerful, but worried voice shouted.

"_Yes, yes, and no. Why would I be hurt?"_

"_Uh… Let's just say that certain things may have happened to make me think that"_

"_Hey Wally."_ Robin's calm voice made itself known_. "What's up?"_

"_Not much. Just layin' here, takin' to a bunch of people through a mind link. What's new with you?"_

"_Same as you. But I'm sitting."_

"_Now that we're all here_," Kaldur's voice interrupted,_ "we need to talk. I think that we've all got a basic idea of where we are and why, but does anyone know what our mentors are talking about?"_

A chorus of 'no's' _was heard in each member's head._

"_Okay then. Does anyone have any information at all?"_

"_I've got something." Conner said, "What ever it was, we did it to more than one person_, _and it was really bad."_

"_Haven't the league ever heard of 'innocent until proven guilty'?" _Artemis huffed.

"_As far as they know, they __**have**__ proven us guilty." _Robin sighed. "_Batman told me that they have" _Robin paused, trying to remember the list Batman had given them, "_DNA, eyewitness', and video that proves it to be us."_

"_DNA can be stolen and copied."_ Wally stated, "_eyewitness' can be wrong, and video can be faked. The league should know that._

"_He also said that the criminals had moves that we only used during training, and that they had some of the knowledge that we had. Whatever that means."_

"_But we should still have the benefit of the dout!" _Artemis argued, "_They can't just show up out of the blue with a bit of evidence and tell us that we did something!"_

"_How much evidence could they possibly have?" _wondered Megan.

"_They've been gathering evidence for four months." _ Robin clarified.

There was an uneasy pause.

"_But the team hasn't even been in commission for that long." _Conner mused.

"_It's only been a year and a month since independence day." _Kaldur said.

"_Well, sitting here talking about it isn't going to prove our innocence." _Artemis stated, "_We need to escape and find out what we did."_

"_As much as I hate to say it," _Wally grumbled, "_Arty's right. When we know what we did, we can work on clearing our name."_

"_But first,"_ Megan contemplated, "_we need to get out of our cells. And that's almost impossible for me._

"_Impossible for everyone." _Conner groaned, "_The league isn't stupid. We probably are all in cells that make moving next to impossible."_

"_That's not entirely true." _Artemis reasoned, "_Me and Robin don't really have weakness' so if one of us can get out, we can let the rest of you out."_

"_I have a way to get us all out, but it needs to have certain elements to work. First off, does anyone know the date?" _Robin said

"_It's still the same day as the comic con," _Wally piped up, "_Other wise, I would have passed out a while ago from lack of food. It's probably only been a few hours."_

"_That's good, it means Flash and Batman have monitor duty. With luck, they'll be at each other's throats long enough for us to make our escape. Megan, can you get the exact time?"_

"_Probably, but I'm not sure." _Megan said doubtfully.

"_Don't worry, you'll be able to." _ Conner assured her.

" _Keep your mind open. Someone is bound to walk by, and as long as it's not your uncle, we should be able to the time and get out without them knowing. Now, for the last piece of the puzzle. At least the last piece we can do while we're imprisoned. Does anyone have a place we can go after we escape?"_

"_I have one." _Wally surprised everyone by saying, "_No one knows about it. Not even Uncle Barry. It's-"_

"_Wait!" _Kaldur commanded, "_It is best if we don't know yet. If in between now and our escape, Martian Manhunter comes and reads our minds, it is better if only you know about it. That way it will only seem as a passing fantasy, and not part of an escape plan."_

"_Alright," _Robin declared triumphantly, "_here's the plan..."_

…

Bruce sat across the table from Barry, watching him with uncertainty. The speedsters sat stirring his hot chocolate slowly. Bruce briefly wondered why no one had come to ask what was wrong, but decided that it was probably due to the fact that the fastest man alive was going at normal speed, and because the only thing Barry had ordered was a hot chocolate. No food, just the drink.

"Barry," Bruce questioned, "I need to know what you saw in that folder."

"I didn't see anything new." Barry replied uncertainly.

"But?"

"But I did notice something amiss."

Bruce lifted both of his eyebrows, silently asking Barry to continue.

"The evidence is solid, but there's so much of it." Barry explained.

Bruce waited in silence, until he understood the hidden message in the words.

"When someone commits a crime," Bruce mused, "they try to make sure that it can't be traced back to them."

Barry nodded slowly, "Especially Robin. You trained that kid so well he could take the cape off of Superman's back and no one would be able to prove it was him. For him to suddenly leave tons of evidence…"

"Would suggest that there's more to this than meets the eye." Bruce finished.

"We should look this over more tonight when we have M. D." Barry stated. Bruce nodded.

"I'm going to check on the kids." Bruce said, getting up and leaving the cafeteria.

"They may be curious as to how long they've been here."

* * *

><p>Whew. Lot's of dialogue in that chapter. But I couldn't just have them break out, since Robin is the only one capable of doing it and he's being watched. So, I hope you like it!<p>

Oh, and if Superman tells the kids what they are going to do, you'll find out to! So it looks like you'll find out next chapter!

Review and vote! It may be the last chance you get.


	9. Part the First: Escape Act one

A/N: Okay, so remember a few chapters ago when I said that Artemis and Robin's cells looked just like Aqualad's? I lied. The rafters in Robins cell are lower than in the others, because he's chained to the ground, so he can't jump up there. It's not the only reason, but it's the only one I'm giving. Also, this is where my lack of comic book knowledge makes itself known (Long story short, I only just discovered the awesomeness of Superheroes now, and I don't know where to find comic books). Almost everything I know about Superheroes is from what I found on FF, so… ya. Also, this is the first actiony scene I've EVER written (I don't count the prologue), so it's amateurish. Deal. Lastly (man this is a long note), the POV _will_ switch around a lot, it will be _mainly_Robin for this chapter, but sometimes it will be necessary to have someone else's POV.

* * *

><p><strong>Part the First: Captured<strong>

**Escape: Act 1**

_"Everyone ready?" _ Aqualad asked his team. He felt the confident feeling affirm his question. _"I think it is time; Robin, go."_

Robin nodded from in his cell, knowing that the others couldn't see him. He pushed the mind-link to the back of his mind, and smiled discreetly. Rising to his hands and knees, Robin crawled over to the small mound that the chain clasped around his ankles was connected to.

"_Everything's going exactly to plan."_ he thought triumphantly. "_Man," _he pondered, plunging the silver lock pick into the small keyhole, _"Are we lucky that the villains decided to all strike at the same time. Never thought I'd say that! At least they'll keep the league busy, although how did that many villains come into contact with one another. There must be at least 50 of them!"_

As Robin continued to pick the small lock, he remembered how well things had gone for his team since they'd been able to talk to each other. Batman himself had come to check on them, Robin thought it ironic that he had walked so close to the cells thinking about the time of day it was, and Megan was able to find out the time from him. Furthering their luck, a call had gone out in the watchtower that many villains were attacking at the same time, and every available hero (minus Batman and Flash, who had monitor duty, a useful tidbit picked up from Batman's mind) was to leave immediately. This exodus was heard in the cells, telling the inmates that they were fortuitously located close to the zeta-tubes.

The Boy Wonder was snapped back into the present by a small click that signalled his success in picking the lock. He moved onto the shackles around his ankles, then his wrists. Once he was totally free, Robin clasped the shackles closed again.

_ "Can't take the chance that the league put a reactor in the chains to tell the guard that the chains are loose. It would take at least ten minuets for the reactors to, well, react, and I **know** that I didn't take that long. And I don't want suspicion to fall on Batman as to why my chains were open; better to leave them wondering." _

Robin then jumped to the nearest rafter, climbing higher and higher until he saw the trap door in the ceiling*. Grinning, and holing back his signature laugh out of paranoia, he leapt through it. Walking a short ways in the cramped, dark, wooden space that followed, he crawled until he spotted a ladder. Robin quickly scrambled down, letting go when he was a few feet above ground and landing deafly on the cream floor outside his cell.

"_I'm out." _Robin called to his trapped friends.

"_Good." _replied Aqualad, "_Do you see the control panel?"_

"_Yea," _Robin confirmed, turning around so that the large platform was in his field of vision, "_I'm looking right at it."_

Robin trotted over to the desk-like podium, and seated himself in the soft, blue chair that was about a foot away from it. He gasped aloud when he looked up and saw his friends on the monitors, but quickly went back to the task at hand.

"_Hacking the system now"_

Robin's fingers flew in a rapid blur as he expertly typed in the codes that would release his friends. He looked up at the five monitors as all of the doors flew open at the same time, and was pleasantly surprised when the white wall divided into five different rooms, separated only by the open doors. Then, without missing a beat, he turned off the gravity lamps, torches, and bonfire that had weakened his friends.

Kid Flash recovered first, and he ran out of his room at a pace slightly faster than a normal humans. He looked around, and then ran into the room where a faint green glow could be seen through the door. Megan walked out of her cell right after, and went into the room where chains could be heard rattling. Kid Flash emerged seconds later with a weak Superboy, followed by a tired Artemis and Megan. Lastly Aqualad emerged, looking slightly worse for wear.

Robin contemplated his teammates. Kid Flash's cowl was slightly darkened underneath his eyes, and dried tear tracks could be seen. The whites of his eyes were almost completely red, contrasting heavily with the natural emerald of his irises. Artemis was almost the exact same, but raw skin showed where the manacles had rubbed of her skin. M'gann and Aqualad had sweat coating their brows, and Aqualad had a large bump on the right side of his head**. Superboy was the worst of. He had defined tear marks running down his face, and large dark spots on his shirt on either side of his neck. He was studying the ground, hands behind his back.

Kid Flash looked around him, quickly taking inventory of the well being of his friends. Robin's appearance was the one that shocked him the most. His friend was happy and smiling, but he could see the darkened spots on the domino mask his friend was sporting. Faint tear tracks ran down his face.

"_But Robin never cries. Ever. Except that one time three years ago when he told me about his parents. I wonder what Bats said to him?" _Kid Flash worried.

Robin noticed Kid Flash's stare, and nearly squirmed. By some unspoken command, the teens all moved so that they were standing in a tight circle in the centre of the hallway.

"Alright. Now that we're all here, we should focus on getting out." Aqualad commanded, "Kid Flash, you go into the cafeteria and get ALL the non-perishable food items you find. Bring them back here, quietly. Artemis, you and I will go and get our weapons back. Robin, stay here and make sure that no alarms go off. M'gann and Superboy, you will go to the med-centre and grab bandages, disinfectant, band-aids, scissors, and blankets. Eight blankets. Two extra, just in case."

Superboy flinched noticeably at the word 'bandages'. "Why do we need those?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because I suspect that we may get injured running from the Justice League. And because some of us are already hurt, and we cannot afford to stay here much longer." Aqualad stated calmly.

"Aqualad's right." Robin said, "Batman and Flash probably already know we've escaped, so we have to hurry."

"If they know, why haven't they come to apprehend us yet?" questioned Artemis, her voice rough as she crossed her arms over her chest indignantly.

"Because they want us to feel safe, and get confident. Then they'll swoop in and haul us back to our cells." Kid Flash stated, his raspy voice emotionless, "Either that, or they're reviewing the evidence and haven't noticed yet. But that's unlikely. Now let's go, the sooner we're gone, the better."

With that, Young Justice parted ways, Artemis and Aqualad running to the weapons room, Kid Flash skipped/ ran to the cafeteria, M'gann and Superboy dashed off to the med-centre, and Robin turned and sat back down in the chair behind the control panel, anxiously awaiting the return of this teammates.

Of course, he would deny those feeling later.

…

Bruce felt his eye beginning to twitch as he looked over the papers in the cream coloured folder he had in his hands.

"You know, Barry, you don't have to look over my shoulder while I'm reading."

"Sorry."

Bruce felt a breeze behind him, and glanced up to see the Scarlet Speedster fidgeting in the chair in front of him. After a couple of uncomfortable moments, Bruce stood up, tossing the folder onto a counter.

"Well Allen, you're right." Bruce said angrily, "There is a boatload of evidence, most of it stuff I trained Robin not to do when he started hero work. Some of the stuff he left behind is so obvious that I never had to tell him not to do it!"

"So either the kids **wanted** us to see them, or it wasn't them." Barry mused. "But some of this evidence is just **so** obvious, that it's probably the latter."

"Like the fact that a piece of Robin's cape was recovered" Bruce listed, nodding his head, "and Kid Flash was seen twice on camera, walking, Artemis left an arrow with her DNA on it, the list goes on!"

Barry suddenly brightened, a large grin gracing his face. "Like the evidence was planted." he said triumphantly.

Bruce stared at the other hero for a moment before smirking and nodding.

"Exactly."

Just then, a shrill, yet quiet, alarm sounded in the room, making the speedster jump and the Dark Knight raise both eyebrows in surprise.

"They're out."

…

"Got everything?" questioned Robin to his fellow comrades. "Good." He said in response to the nods of affirmation he received. Robin then took all the supplies, and swiftly hid them under the control panel.

"Why are you doing that Rob?" Kid Flash questioned, green eyes narrowing in inquiry.

"There's one more thing we have to get, and we can't take any of this stuff with us. It would slow us down." Robin began to walk stealthily down the hallway, motioning with a slight movement of his head to tell the others to follow.

"Well," Artemis snarled quietly, catching up to the smaller boy, "What do we still need to get?"

Robin smirked, and looked at each of the following teens in the eye before answering.

"The Evidence."

* * *

><p>Haha! Act one complete!<p>

*How did you _think _Batman got in?

**Imagine Kaldur. Now imagine him standing in the watchtower. Now imagine him with a huge bump on his head. strange sight indeed, don't you agree?

Will YJ be able to get the evidence and escape before Bruce and Barry find them?

Will the two supportive mentors help the kids, or imprison them again? (the answer is not as it seems!)

Will true love reing all? Not on my show!

What will the evidence reveal?

Will any of the other heroes show up and discover the teens missing before they escape completely?

How much longer can I possibly drag out your finding out what they did?

Will you review *please* and vote on my poll *double please*?

Stay tuned, and find out!


	10. Part the First: Escape Act Two

So here it is! Sorry for the late upload, but I had family stuff. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Part the First: Captured<p>

**Escape- Act Two**

The team stalked silently through the hallways of the watchtower, letting their stealth training flow in their movements; they were silent silhouettes in the shadows. Robin led the small pack of teens, motioning ever so often-in one direction or the other with a gloved hand. Artemis fell in step behind him, an arrow strung in her bow. Kid Flash crouched beside her, matching every one of his footfalls to hers, struggling to keep from running ahead. M'gann and Superboy walked silently behind them, Superboy listening to see if they were being followed, M'gann using her telepathy to make sure no one was up ahead. Aqualad brought up the rear, water-bearers in his hands but not activated.

Robin wordlessly turned a corner, and stopped suddenly. The other protégés stopped as well, confusion lining their features.

_"What's wrong Robin?" _Kid Flash asked his best friend through the mind link they had established after escaping their cells.

"_Look." _was the cryptic reply he received. The younger hero tilted his head in the direction before him.

Artemis and Kid Flash peered over the young bird's shoulder, while the remaining teens silently tiptoed to the other wall to get a better view. M'gann took a shark intake of breath, looking out into the room before her.

In the long, open, room tall windows graced every wall. The barren floors held nothing that would conceal the fugitives from the sunlight that streamed in from the windows. The entire room was empty, save for the security cameras in every corner.

"_Can you disable them Robin? Or stop the stream?" _Aqualad asked calmly.

"_Not without altering whoever is on security." _was the grim reply. "_The sun is rising, and after we all crossed the room __**and**__ after I put the cameras back on, the sun will be in a different position. Instant give away._

"_Is there another way to the evidence room?" _Artemis inquired nervously.

"_Yes, but it's longer and we'd have to go back a ways."_

"_Well we don't have much of a choice, do we?" _Superboy reasoned sharply.

Robin nodded, and all six heroes turned around, quickly re-forming into their previous positions. With every step, each member felt the other's apprehension grow through the mind link*.

"_How far is it till we get there?" _Kid Flash whined.

"_Not that much farther, we need to take the first right, than the second left, then we'll be there!" _Robin replied, his patience growing thin.

Three tight turns later, and the team found themselves gazing up in awe at the dark room. It was a simple room, medium size, and a long table in the middle, a smaller table stacked with beakers and test tubes, and a door across from where the protégés stood. What surprised them, however, were the cabinets. Stacked up against all four walls, sat large, grey cabinets. Some walls had two cabinets stacked up on top of each other, and all the cabinets had a tight, high-tech, lock on the front of each drawer.

"Where do we start?" breathed M'gann quietly.

"Fist things first M'gann," Aqualad whispered, "Superboy, guard this door. I will guard the other one. Everyone M'gann, Kid Flash, and Artemis will look for our evidence, while Robin works on disabling the camera's and the locks. Everyone agree?"

Nods of union met the question.

"Good."

Minuets of tense silence passed, and no one knew how long it would be until the older heroes came back. So, it was a huge relief when a certain young speedster gave the soft call of:

"I found it!"

Robin scurried over to where his best friend was crouching, and pulled up his hollo-computer. A few quick taps on his keyboard, and the lock deftly opened up. Robin pulled out the folder with shaking hands, and the rest of the team reverently walked over to him.

The rest of the team, except Superboy, who leaned carefully against the door, a look of intense concentration etched onto his face. His eye's widened in terror when he realized exactly what he was hearing.

"Someone's coming!" he cried, turning away from the door and running to his panic-stricken teammates.

Robin was the first to shake off the feeling of impending doom.

"Hide!" he commanded his friends urgently. He took a moment to close the open evidence drawer, before climbing on top of the nearest cabinet and curling into a ball with his cape draped around him. Kid Flash sped over to the far side of the table, sat down, and activated his cameo-suit**. He was vibrating from apprehension. Aqualad followed him and sat next to the vibrating teen. M'gann simply flew to the top of the room and turned invisible, while Artemis hid behind the smaller table. Superboy looked around wildly, not knowing where to hide and beginning to panic. M'gann quickly dove down and picked him up, floating back to the ceiling and turning them both invisible***.

There they waited, the seconds ticking by like minuets, the tension in the room growing faster that the Flash runs. Until, slowly, as if to taunt them, a thin stream of light entered the room. It grew, and from his perch, Robin could see two figures step into the doorframe.

Flash and Batman.

The team all but stopped breathing, not knowing what the two founding members would do. Batman simply looked at Flash, and nodded.

"_Crud." _the thought was heard through the mind-link, although no one really knew who thought it.

Kid Flash didn't blink, he knew that the second he did he gave up every chance of escaping the combined wrath of his mentor and Batman.

Batman walked into the room, flowed closely by Flash, his eyes never leaving the long tabletop. When they were across from Kid Flash and Kaldur, they stopped and waited. Second flew by, the urge to jump and run flowed uncontrollably through all the teens, and became harder and harder to resist. Finally, something snapped.

Robin watched in horror as Batman threw two, small balls at the spot where M'gann and Superboy were. The balls exploded into a small fireball that instantly sent them both crashing down, only to be caught by Aqualad. Before most of the team knew what happened, they were again in handcuffs and were being chained together. Kid Flash slowly crept around the table, and approached his confused teammates. But Batman was instantly in front of him, and with a quick movement, had the young hero down on his back and in shackles. Artemis drew an arrow from her quiver, but before she could string it, she was picked up. She blinked, and found herself standing next to her chained friends, bound once again. Robin took out his bird-erangs and tossed them at Batman. Batman deflected them easily, and in a blur of red, Robin found himself in chains again. Batman and Flash appeared in front of the line of teens, and each grabbed one end of the connecting chain. The small procession then made their way into the hallway, back to the cells from which the young heroes had just escaped.

"Well, I thought we'd have to deal with some sort of escape attempt, but trying to get the evidence was fool-hardy." Batman scolded as they walked down the hallways. The team, for their part, was still too ashamed to speak, but M'gann kept the mind-link open.

"Batman's right," Flash started, "if you hadn't detoured, you would be home free right now. Well, you'd be on the run right now."

"I'm almost surprised that we were right." Batman mused to Flash.

"About the placing? I figured Robin, at least, would have figured it out."

"What?" the prisoners asked in bewilderment.

"We placed you in a certain order, according to what each of you would do in the event that you escaped." Flash explained.

"M'gann was closest to the zeta-beams, because she was the most likely to want to rescues the others before leaving." Batman clarified, "Superboy was next, for the same reason. Then Aqualad, Artemis, Kid Flash and Robin."

"So, what you're saying is that in the event that I escaped, you thought I would leave my team behind?" Robin huffed angrily.

"No," Batman snapped, "what we're saying, is that you'd be the most likely person to go get help from the outside. You could get in from almost all of the zeta-tubes, and you would come back after you'd convinced other heroes to come and help you free the others."

"But now, we'll have to tighten security around your cells, when we get you in them." Flash said sadly.

"Unless you manage to escape from us." Batman prodded.

"Most likely through the use of force." Flash continued.

"Then you'd have to confine us in a cell, make sure we couldn't get out, then leave." Batman finished.

"The league wouldn't believe that." Artemis scoffed.

"Robin took out six of the seven founding members by himself when he was nine, so I think that they would believe that an entire team of trained partners could take out two." Flash corrected. (that thought courtesy of Elyograg's story: A Father's comfort.)

The small caravan continued their walk in silence, the teens communicating telepathically, until they came to Robin's cell. Then the team exploded.

M'gann used her telepathy to break the chains and handcuffs, followed immediately by Kid Flash running around the older heroes. Flash took a step out to try and catch him, but tripped over a cluster of marbles. Superboy and Aqualad tackled Batman to the ground, and Robin removed the pocket that kept Batman's personal supply of kryptonite. Kid Flash and Artemis held down Flash, while M'gann wrapped chains around both men's hands and feet.

Quickly, Aqualad and Superboy gently dragged the two heroes to Kid Flash's cell, where they placed them sitting back to back in the middle of the room. Robin intensified the gravity lamps slightly once the two partners left.

"Just to make sure they stay there." he reasoned. "Now, Wally, where did you say that safe-haven was?"

"Blue Valley, Nebraska." Kid Flash whispered, "It's where I grew up. I have a little cabin that I used as a kid. It should hold all of us temporarily, and no one on earth, or anywhere else, knows about it."

"You sure?" Artemis inquired, grabbing his wrist.

"Positive."

"Then away we go!" M'gann squealed.

"One sec." Robin commanded, pulling up his computer again, "I want to erase our conversation. Can't have the league be suspicious of our those two. Plus, we don't want this conversation to have ever happened."

A few second of intense waiting later, and the zeta tubes powered up. Superboy went first, since he was carrying the food, then Aqualad, who carried the rest of the supplies, then Artemis, M'gann, Kid Flash and finally, Robin.

…

"I thought you said it was a **small** cabin!" Conner exclaimed, walking into the cabin. The team had just reached the place that they would call home for the immediate future and were surprised to say the least.

The cabin was more of a glorified lean-to, thin logs stacked up on top of one another so high it was shoulder length to Kaldur. It was long enough to hold a small family quite comfortably, and it was fully wind-proof. It also blended well with the woods around it, making it almost invisible unless someone was to look for it.

"Welcome home!" Wally yelled.

"Wally, be quiet!" Artemis scolded, "It's, like, ten o clock at night! People are probably sleeping!"

"Oops."

"Guy's," a weary Megan cried softly, sitting down on the hard dirt, "we left the evidence at the watchtower!"

"Crud!" Artemis spat, sitting down beside her.

"How do we clear our names without even knowing what we did?" Conner whined.

"Fear not!" Robin laughed, "I have the evidence right here!"

"Really?" Wally piped up.

"I don not see how that is possible." Kaldur said, walking over to the young bird.

"I put it in a secret pocket in my cape before I hid." He pulled out the folder, "It's been safely there ever since. Now gather round, and we'll see what we've been accused of."

Robin sat in the middle of the room, and tossed the folder onto the ground in front of him. The rest of the team huddled around it, and when they were all seated, Robin opened up the folder.

It's contents made all six teens gasp in horror.

* * *

><p>I'M EVIL! Cookies to anyone who guesses correctly why I changed their name's from Super to Normal and back again.<p>

* and ***: Not sure if this is possible, but whatever.

**: Any one know how to spell the abbreviated form of "camouflage?" 'cause I don't think that's it.

REVIEW AND VOTE PLEASE!


	11. Part the Second: Secrets

**Alright, sorry for not updating last week, but I was out of my house (or bunker, you'll never know) for almost all weekend and when I got back I was too burnt out to write! But, to compensate, I'll try and update twice this week. Oh and the winners of the poll is… *drum roll***

* * *

><p>Part the Second: Hidden<p>

**Chapter 11- Secrets**

Superman was angry. He was angry at himself for not insisting that Batman and Flash go on the mission, he was angry at the villains for choosing that **exact** moment to band together and fight simultaneously, he was angry at just about everything.

"How did this happen?" he growled to Batman as the latter emerged from the cell.

"What do you mean 'how did this happen'?" was Batman's reply, his eyes narrowing to small slits, "I already told you, the team escaped, and when Flash and I tried to apprehend them, they over powered us and locked us up. End of story."

"But how did they escape? Where did they go? We're the Justice league, and we can't even find six kids?" Superman roared, stunning all heroes within earshot except Batman.

"I'm not sure, Robin wiped out the zeta memory by remote control, so we have no idea, and these aren't just six kids. They're our protégés. They know how we tick, and they'll be hard to find. Get over it." Batman stated calmly.

A tense few moments went by as the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel stared angrily at each other. Superman looked away first, and began to walk down the hallway. Heroes with partners, along with Black Canary and Red Tornado followed. Superman entered a small room with a large TV on a table in the middle next to a DVD player and a computer. He stalked over to the computer, and after typing a few keys, managed to get a video file up.

Six different panels popped up on the screen, each showing one of the six kids.

"Alright Batman. Can you get it to show just a few moments before they escaped?" Superman asked, trying to keep his voice under control.

Batman composedly walked up to the computer, pushed Superman out of the way, then began to type. The video on all six panels sped up for a few seconds, then paused and began to play at normal speed. The heroes saw Megan's face shift from a look of confusion to concentration, and then they saw the other young heroes' faces light up.

"I thought you said that you put up a mental block on M'gann to prevent this sort of thing?" Flash questioned Martian Man-hunter.

"I did." came the monotone reply, "But I took it off during the meeting, because it required too much energy to uphold." The Martian fidgeted at the scathing looks he received, "At the time she was unconscious, and the meeting took longer than expected. Had I known…"

"It's not your fault J'onn." Green Arrow said softly, putting a hand on the Martian's shoulder.

They continued to watch in silence as they saw the teens evacuate their cells, gather supplies, then go to get evidence. Most nodded approvingly as Batman and Flash marched them silently down the hallway, before the protégés exploded. Eyes went wide when the teens easily dispatched two heroes, and then the screen went blank.

They sat in tense silence before Black Canary spoke.

"At least they're well trained."

================================================~[,,_,,];3

Kaldur was the first to recover from the shock. He gently pulled the folder out of Robins lap, and extracted its contents.

A single, white piece of paper was all that was in the folder. I black writing, the note said:

TO: The Team.

If you're reading this, it means that you've successfully escaped, and that you are safely hidden from the League. For now. You are undoubtedly confused, as you assumed that this folder contained the evidence for the crimes you committed. However, I have divided the data into two separate bundles. One bundle is in Gotham, the other in Metropolis.

Good Luck.

Underneath the note, in red ink, was a large smiling, trollface with the underlining text of "U mad?"

"All that work, and almost getting our butts back in a cell and **this** is what we get out of it?" Artemis huffed.

"I'm more concerned that Batman drew a trollface." Dick said slowly, slightly shocked. *

"That was Flash." Wally laughed nervously, "He's been practicing for months now, for just such and occasion."

"What do we do now?" Megan asked, on the brink of tears. Conner put his strong arm around her and pulled her close.

"First," Kaldur ordered, "We need to get out of our costumes. Next, we'll need to find a way to Gotham or Metropolis. Then, we get evidence, and clear our names."

"But, aren't Gotham and Metropolis two of the hardest places to break into?" Conner asked innocently.

"Home of Batman and Superman." Robin sighed, dismayed.

"It's practically impossible." Artemis agreed.

"We're back to square one." Wally groaned, falling on his back and hitting his head on the walls of the wood cabin.

"Look," Kaldur said, narrowing his eyes in frustration, "It's not impossible, and we **will** find out what we're being accused of. But for now, we must get out of our costumes and into civilian clothing. Then we must rest. **After** we've done that, we can worry about getting the evidence."

Five pairs of eyes stared up at him. Kaldur took a moment and looked each of his teammates in the eye. He saw, hidden beneath their training, an element of fear. He saw their exhaustion. But he had to be strong. He was the leader, and he was the oldest, and he appeared to be the only one that still had adrenalin pumping through his system. Taking a deep breath, Aqualad addressed his team.

"Wally, are there any big stores around here?"

"Yeah, there's a mall not far from here." Came the shaky reply, Kid Flash rising from the floor.

"And I have some special contacts in my utility belt!" Robin piped up excitedly, "They have a multitude of colours, so we can all have different ones. They're also specially made so that they wont hurt your eyes." Robin proceeded to take out two vials from a pocket in his utility belt.

"Good." Aqualad acknowledged, "Miss Martian, is it possible for you to transform without your Uncle sensing it?"

"Yes," M'gann said hesitantly, "but that's as far as it goes. Anything else and he'll be able to tell it's me."

"Including conversing telepathically?"

"Yes."

"Hmmm." Aqualad hummed. "That complicates things, but we'll make it work."

Robin interrupted his thoughts by asking him what colour he wanted his eyes to be.

"We want to have every one with a different colour. Wally chose grey, Artemis green, Conner brown, Megan Blue. What do you want?"

Aqualad thought about it for some time before choosing a green-hazel. Robin settled on brown-hazel, but had to turn and face the corner to put them on.

"When this is resolved, I don't wanna face the punishment Batman threatened if I tell you guys my Secret Identity." He explained.

Once they were all ready, the team ran quietly to the mall.

"I don't know guys," M'gann whispered as Robin worked on hacking the security, "should we really be stealing? It'll just make us look more like criminals."

"Here." Robin said, giving her a notepad and pencil, "write down the name of the store you took something from. When this is over, we'll come back and return all the stuff."

"Where do you keep that?" KF asked his friend; he read the silent message that Dick would probably give a small donation to each of the stores, anonymously.

"Same compartment as the chalk." Robin said mischievously. His attitude quickly vanished as he came back to reality.

"This is where it gets tricky. The way this alarm is set up makes it so that when we open the doors, we have a half hour to grab what we can and get out. The cameras are offline, so they wont know who broke in. KF, we'll need you to grab a portable DVD player as well as some civilian close for yourself. Each of you needs three pairs of pants, four shirts and two pairs of shoes." Robin rolled his eyes at the confused looks he received. "For emergencies. I'll explain later, but everyone knows what to do right?"

Everyone voiced his or her approval.

"Good."

The next thirty minuets went by as a blur to everyone. _"Get in, get out." _ Was the only thought that went thought everyone's mind. They met up twenty-nine minuets later, and KF was the last person to leave, the DVD player in his hands.

"Cuttin' it kinda close eh Baywathch?" Artemis panted, clothes griped tightly in her arms.

"Shut up."

The team trudged back into the woods, and fell asleep almost as soon as they stepped into the cabin.

* * *

><p>BLAME THE PLOT BUNNY! haflway through the INTEROGATION chapters, a plot bunny came to me demanding i change my story to draw it out longer. At first, I was all like, NO WAY! THAT'S BE MEAN! but it kept nagging at me until i couldn't take it any more.<p>

ALSO: I can't believe not a **single** one of you notcied this. During ESCAPE ACT ONE, Batman and Flash** have** the evidence. With them. So it couldn't be in the evidence room. Why do you think they took so long to get to the team?

SORRY!

I'll try and update tomorrow, just to make amends for the plot bunny.


	12. Part the Second: Evidence

GAH! My life doesn't believe in "taking a break to write". Again, I blame school. Two tests followed by a big project, great for writing. *sigh* Oh well, here it is! Oh, just so we're clear, I have no idea where the cities of Gotham and Metropolis are at all, let alone where they are in relation to each other/ Blue Valley, Nebraska. So we'll pretend that they're kinda farish away.

We'll also pretend that this was up on Tuesday.

* * *

><p><strong>Part the Second: Hidden<strong>

**Evidence**

Wally paced the platform impatiently, careful to keep his speed normal.

"Stop it!" growled Artemis, adjusting the straps of the backpack that held her quiver, "You're going to drive me crazy!"

"Uhhhg! But the train is just so slow!"

"Patience is a virtue Baywatch!"

"So why don't you learn some?"

"Remind me again why we are taking the train?" Kaldur whispered to Dick, deciding to let the bickering pair argue.

"Wouldn't it be faster to take a plane?" Conner asked innocently.

"Faster yes, but also harder to sneak past security. Especially since three of us need weapons, something that is more likely to go unnoticed in a train-station*." Dick replied, looking calmly around the station. "Not to mention that security here is less potent than at the airport."

"Train's here!" Megan chirped excitedly, grabbing Artemis and Wally and pulling them a few steps to join the others.

The teens walked onto the train as soon as it stopped, disappearing into the crowd of people hustling in the same direction. They quickly found a corner that had two benches facing each other and sat down. Most of the trip passed in tense silence, but, as they came close to their destination, Kaldur went over the plan.

"Remember," he said quietly, " just get in, get the evidence, then get out. Our next train leaves in an hour in a half, so engaging is **not** and option."

Solemn nods of approval met his statement.

Minuets later, the train stopped at its destination. Metropolis.

The team quickly walked towards the local police station, splitting into pairs two blocks away.

Miss Martian and Robin walked into a deserted ally, where Miss Martian took the younger boy on to the roof of the police station in camo mode. There, Robin hacked the security cameras, and sent a signal to the waiting Artemis and Aqualad. That duo walked into the station, Artemis limping and leaning on Aqualad in mock pain.

"What's wrong?" asked a concerned police officer, rising from his desk and walking over to the pair.

"We were attacked," Aqualad explained breathlessly, "By a large man. He-He was tall, brown hair, and muscular, that's all we saw of him."

"He took my wallet," Artemis added, feigning panic, "it has my ID, my credit card, everything!" Artemis the buried her face into Aqualad's shoulder, pretending to cry.

"Easy there Miss," the police officer soothed, "we'll get him. Just have a seat and wait." He ushered the two into a seat, and turned to walk out of the room. Artemis discreetly pulled an arrow from her quiver, and his a small button on the tip of the arrowhead. Knockout gas began to seep into the room, and Artemis placed it under her seat. Nodding to Aqualad, they pulled out gasmasks and placed them over their faces.

"Hey, what's thi-" the police officer asked suspiciously, but fell to the ground, unconscious, before he could finish. Artemis smirked, and opened the door of the station. Looking around to make sure that no one had noticed the commotion, Aqualad waved across the street to a waiting Kid Flash and Superboy.

Superboy, seeing the signal, nodded to KF, and the latter ran across the street into the station. After using his speed to clear the area of the gas, he left the station, staying within earshot. _"The plan is going perfectly!" _he thought excitedly.

He pointed to his wrist, the signal he and Superboy had arranged, just as a feminine sequel made it's way to his ears.

As expected, a swarm of people crowded into the police office, Kid and Superboy among them, to see what the commotion was about.

"He just collapsed!" Artemis was explaining to the dozens of people who crowded the small room. Unnoticed in the commotion, KF and Superboy sprinted into the hallway at the end of the room.

"I sure hope Robin's schematics are correct." Superboy whispered.

"If they're not, we're in it deep." Kid Flash replied anxiously.

They quickly scouted the walls for and air vent, and found the correct one above a group of police officers. In a blur, Kid Flash had knocked them all unconscious, and sat them against the wall. Superboy stepped over the fallen officers and right up to the vent. He used his hands to tap a rhythm on the metal grate. Less than a minuet later, Robin and Miss Martian popped out of the vent. Robin, without a word to his other teammates, whistled shrilly. A few short second later, and the team had all it's members.

The young heroes ran further down the hallway, silent and stealthy.

After countless minuets of navigating, many wrong turns, and a few close calls, the frustrated, breathless teens found the room they were looking for.

"Evidence." breathed Robin, reading the gold plate that was nailed to the dark wood door. "Supes, you know what to do."

Superboy nodded, and walked to the door. With a slight push above the doorknob, it opened, and then fell over.

"Oops."

Miss Martian smiled at him, and then they all went into the room, stepping carefully over the door. Robin pulled up his holographic computer, and then poked a few buttons on the screen.

"Okay, security is disabled, but it's only going to be a few minuets before they realize it. We have to do this fast."

On that note, the team rushed further into the room, with Miss Martian telepathatically turning on the lights, and were surprised by what they saw.

"Hey… I can explain," a feminine voice stuttered. A girl in a tuxedo stood at the back, left corner of the room, holding a small box and a folder.

"Zatanna!" the Martian girl squeaked, hovering over to the girl.

"What are you doing here?" Artemis asked running over as well.

Zatanna blinked a few times before smiling and answering the question.

"Well, my dad started asking me all these questions about you guys, things like what you were doing for training and what not. He wouldn't tell me why, but he let it slip that you had done something. So I did a little digging and found out that you had been accused of something, but I couldn't get into the evidence file. I did find out where they had transported the evidence, and I wanted to see if the accusations were true." Zatanna shrugged, "I don't think they are but-"

"They're not." Robin rushed to interrupt, "I can guarantee that."

" If I may, what is in the box?" Aqualad asked, snapping everyone back to the present.

"Let's see, an arrow head, a torn piece of black cape, and this folder." Zatanna replied, "The folder basically just says that your" she gestured to Robin and Artemis, "DNA is on these. It also says stuff like 'Salt water found on scene four, muddy foot print on scene two.'"

"Is that it?" Kid Flash asked angrily, clutching the his hair in frustration.

"Ya. Sorry." Zatanna confirmed.

"S'oaky. Hey here's a crazy idea," Robin quickly said, placing a hand on the girls shoulder, "You should come with us to Gotham. The **real** evidence is probably there anyway and-"

"Freeze!" a harsh voice yelled.

All seven teens turned towards the entrance of the room, where a muscular police officer pointed a gun at them.

"Put your hands in the air!" she commanded.

The group of heroes exchanged a look, and without a word, lifted their hand in the air. However, when the police officer lowered her gun, Superboy turned and smashed a hole through the wall.

Fortunately, the new room was empty, and the teens rushed into it.

"We've got seven minors running rampant in the mess hall," Superboy heard the woman say, "One had the evidence from the justice league, requesting back-up."

Superboy sighed, and focused on other things, like smashing another wall. Two walls later, and the team found themselves out side the station.

"Take the route around these houses!" commanded Aqualad, "We'll lose them and then go back to the train. Go!"

The chase was on.

* * *

><p>YA YA I KNOW! Another cliffhanger. Well, It's midnight and I'm going to bed. Deal.<p>

ALSO! In honor of Zatanna OFFICIALLY being part of the team, she's now here! yay!

*I've never been to a train station, so I don't know if that's true or not. Also, I've never been to a police station, so I don't know the layout. So, sorry for any of you who went SHE GOT IT WRONG!

Oh, and to make up for the cliffhanger... the TITLE OF THE NEXT CHAPTER IS...

**Part the Second: Hidden**

** Justice League.**

****===~[,,,_,,,];3


	13. Part the Second: Justice League

PREPARE FOR A LONG AUTORS NOTE: So, a lot of you have reviewed saying that this story has spelling and grammar problems. You're right. But I like to think that I'm getting better… hopefully. Grammar/Spelling has always been my chief weakness, and I appreciate you're telling me my mistakes. If you notice that I'm making the same mistakes over and over, you can PM me and I'll take a note. Also, I do check over my spelling mistakes, but I'm not very observant at that sort of thing. =P I am trying to figure out the whole "beta" thing, but my computer is a kriffen' pile of scrap sometimes and…ya. Okay, so THERE WAS SPITFIRENESS IN THE LAST EPISODE! ^_^ YAY! Also, as the team adds members, I'll TRY and add them to the story, but no promises; and I wont add members that AREN'T on the team, sorry! AND I WON'T ADD ROCKET! SHE DOESN'T WORK FOR MY TEAM DYNAMICS. And I don't really like her; I'm giving her a chance, but she's still NOT GETTING IN TO MY STORY! Oh, and this is another first for me… FIRST CHASE SCENE! Are you ready?

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><p><strong>Part the Second: Hidden Justice League<strong>

**WARNING! ****This chapter may be rated T. I'm not sure how the ratings are classified (**that page on ratings did nothing to help**). It's because of blood, nothing else. Wait… ya. **

_We've got seven minors running rampant in the mess hall," One has the evidence from the Justice League, requesting back-up."…_

"_We'll lose them and then go back to the train. Go!"_

================================================~[,,_,,]:3

"Run! Quick!" Wally screamed, falling back to the end of the breathless pack of heroes. Artemis shot him a glare, but didn't comment.

The team rounded a corner, only to be faced with the tall side of a purple apartment.

"Purple?" Megan asked tilting her head to the side in bemusement. The rest of the young heroes just stared incomprehensibly at the wall in front of them, until they where brought back to reality by a sharp voice from behind.

"They're over there! Hurry, we've got them cornered!"

"They're **way** too close for comfort." Dick muttered, forcing his voice not to shake.

"What's the plan Kal?" Zattana (**a/n: two t's, or just one in her name?**)

Kaldur blinked rapidly, and began issuing commands.

"Wally*, can you run up onto the roof of this building holding another person?" he asked rapidly. At the speedster's nod, he continued, "Good. Take Artemis. Zatanna (**I know it's either this spelling, or the one above it.**) You levitate Robin and yourself, if you can." Zatanna also nodded, " Megan, I need you to levitate me and yourself onto the roof, and Conner, you shall jump. Carefully. As a precaution, Megan and Zatanna will combine their powers to cushion your landing. Are there any questions? Yes Wally, you do have to carry Artemis. Put your hand down."

The team leapt into action. Wally grumpily scooped up an equally grumpy Artemis bridal style, and zoomed up the wall.

Zatanna muttered "Raeppa o gnitaolf mroftalp!" and a golden circle appeared. She and Dick jumped onto it and floated to the roof.

Megan lifted off into the air and began to ascend, grabbing Kaldur's upturned hands on her way.

Conner waited until he saw Wally's hand wave at him from on top of the roof, then he sprang. He heard one police officer's startled gasp, and then he was falling. He stretched his legs out as far as they could go, a technique that Black Canary had taught him, and pulled them back slowly. As he fell, he noticed that his decent fell ever slower, and he eventually stopped in mid-air about two feet from the roof. Megan had her hands outstretched towards him, and sweat was forming on her brow. Then, he was dropped unceremoniously onto the roof, landing softly on his back. Megan exhaled contentedly and smiled apologetically at him.

The team looked around them for an escape route, each running to a different corner of the roof.

"We've got company!" Zatanna's panicked voice warned at the same time Artemis called "This way!"

All heroes jogged to where Artemis was standing. The other building sat close to the one they were standing on, and the rest of the buildings together, leading in the direction of the train station.

"This is good!" Dick exclaimed jumping onto the other roof.

"Freeze!" a deep voice from behind them commanded. The teens turned sharply around to see a man standing behind them. Pointing a gun at Conner. The man swiftly changed targets as if he didn't know who to point it at.

"Jump!" Kaldur demanded.

All six protégés jumped onto the next roof, and two gunshots rang in the air. One bouncing harmlessly off Conner, and the other grazing Wally's leg. They continued jumping, while more and more police officers piled around the buildings and on the roofs.

"Ah!"

Six heroes stopped dead in their tracks as the pained cry came from the Martian girl. She was crouched on the roof, cradling her bleeding arm. Conner ran over and gently picked her up. He looked around and was relieved to see the bloody bullet laying a few feet away.

"I'll be fine." She managed to say, although no one bought the words, and the team continued running.

"Last one." he whispered calmly to her as he approached the end of the roof. Megan buried her face in his shoulder as a response.

Carefully, Conner jumped down, trying hard to ignore the muffled scream that came from the girl in his arms.

"In here." Dick commanded quietly, opening the door of an empty cart, "It's the cargo hold, and the trains about to leave so there shouldn't be anyone coming to check. Hurry!"

Every teen ran as fast as they could into the cart, scrambling in their haste.

Kaldur closed the door behind them, and almost immediately the train lurched to life.

" Over here Supes." Wally beckoned from behind many suitcases, "We made a little hide-away."

At first, Conner didn't see anything special about the suitcases piled up shoulder high, but as he carried the unconscious Megan closer he realized that they were piled in a rectangle formation wide enough to fit the entire team smugly.

"Now," Artemis said shakily, " that we're all safe,"

"Safe?" Wally interrupted, "We're **not** safe! Megan's shot, the league probably knows where we are, and -!"

The team blinked slowly as Wally's rant sped up, and he eventually began to talk so fast that he bit his tongue.

"What did he say Rob?" Zatanna asked the bird.

Dick shook his head as if to clear it, "All I got was 'hippopotamus' and 'kumquat'."

"Anyway," Artemis said slowly, "as I was saying, now that we're relatively safe, we need to plan what we should do next."

"First things first." Conner's gruff voice stated, "We need to help M'gann."

================================================~[,,_,,]:3

"Superman." Superman said gruffly, activating his com-link. His cyan eyes widened, as the other league members watched bemused.

"Alright. Thank you." The Boy Scout nodded.

"They found them."

================================================~[,,_,,]:3

Six teens slept peacefully, while Superboy kept watch. Megan's arm had been wrapped up in bandages, although it had taken twice as much as normal. Conner shuddered, even as a Superhero he'd never seen so much blood. Not all at once. Conner shut his eye's tight, and tried to let the resounding clicks of the wheels lull him to sleep. Resting his arm protectively over Megan, he felt his lids slowly droop shut.

He was rather rudely awakened by a long, sharp, whine coming from beneath him. Jolting upright, he frantically looked around for an intruder, only to realize that the train was coming to a stop.

Superboy let out a heavy sigh, and gently jostled M'gann's uninjured arm.

"mmm." the sleepy Martian groaned, but reluctantly got up, eye's glossy. She blinked once. Twice. Then smiled.

"Have we cleared our names yet?" she slurred.

Conner found himself smiling at her.

"Not yet. But we're at Gotham. Time to find out what we did."

Superboy got up and awakened each of his other team members. Robin, to his surprise, got up while he was talking to M'gann, and was trying to wake up Wally, who'd fallen asleep with a granola bar in his mouth. Superboy wasn't sure how he'd managed not to choke, but he'd learned the hard way never to question the wonders of Kid Flash and Robin.

Aqualad was also easily awakened. Superboy simply said, "its time.", and Aqualad shot up like a bullet.

Artemis, however, was the hardest. After many failed attempts at waking her gently, Wally brilliantly had the idea of yelling "giant cat's are falling out of hole in the roof and they're going to eat you!" next to the archers ear. He wound up with a bloody nose, as well as a very mad archer.

The team got off the train, and the frigid Gotham air set them back to the mission at hand.

Robin took the lead, the rest of the group moving silently behind him. They stuck to the shadows, until Robin stopped at a large, brick building. The next second, and he was gone, rising to the top of the structure. The rest of the team followed silently. When they landed on the roof, they saw that Boy Wonder was already finishing hacking the security. After getting the thumbs up from Robin, Miss Martian used her telepathy to open the vent cover. They waited for a few tense seconds, before Superboy spun around quickly. He looked into the distance for what seemed like a long time, both to his waiting teammates and to the listening Superboy, until he whispered a single, panicked phrase.

"They're here!"

"Pardon me?" Zattana asked, muscles tensing.

"They're here! I can hear them coming!"

"Supes, slow down! Who's coming?" Kid Flash asked, an uneasy note tinting his voice.

"The Justice League!" Superboy exclaimed, turning to face his friends, "I can hear them coming, and they're closing in fast."

The team cringed, and glanced around at each other nervously.

"Alright," Aqualad breathed, realising everyone from his or her panicked trance, "we need to-"

"Surrender peacefully." A dark voice boomed from the shadows.

The teens spun in the direction of the voice, and saw Batman emerge from shadows they didn't even see.

"This can be done easily, or messily. Your choice." Another voice threatened. Superman landed on the roof, as did Flash, Black Canary, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Red Tornado. All were prepared to battle.

"_Linked?" _Miss Martians voice filtered through everyone's head.

"_Yes"_

"_Yup"_

"_Indeed."_

"_You Bet"_

"_Yes."_

"_Ah-huh."_

"_Good." _Aqualad's voice breathed, "_Robin, you know the layout best, go get the evidence. The rest of us will fight, buy you some time."_

Robin nodded, and ran towards a vent on other side of the roof. With a flick of his wrist, Batman threw four ice pellets in the direction of the vent. Robin jumped, and his cape disappeared in the vent mere seconds before ice enveloped the opening. In response, Black Canary, Red Tornado, and Green Lantern moved to stand in a circle formation between the team and the icy vent. The other members of the league quickly completed the circle.

"_Gamma manoeuvre." _Aqualad ordered. Five heroes quickly twirled around, stopping to stand back to back. Each hero standing slightly to the right of his or her mentor; Miss Martian was paired up with Red Tornado, Aqualad with Black Canary, Green Lantern stood before an empty space. Zatanna stood, frozen and confused, before shrugging and moving to stand in the empty space in the team's circle.

"_So… what's the plan?" _she asked nonchalantly.

"_Protect the person on your right."_ Artemis responded, "_we rotate clockwise ever-so-often, but we'll tell you when."_

"So, the messy way huh?" Flash asked sadly.

Kid Flash shrugged "We need the practice anyway."

With an audible sigh from every member of the league, they attacked.

================================================~[,,_,,]:3

Robin crawled through the air ducts, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being followed. He let his detective skills take over his senses, and soon came to a large room filled with books, drawers, and boxes.

"_Okay think," _Robin thought, leaping silently onto one of the higher shelves, "_Where is the most logical place to hide something? Somewhere Illogical. Rephrase, where is the most __**illogical**__ place to hide something? Of course this __**was**__ hidden by Batman, so…"_ Robin's thoughts continued down this path as he stalked silently along the tops of shelves and cabinets alike.

"Robin." A gravely voice floated to Robin's ears, making him tense slightly.

"Batman." He replied, throwing his voice as his mentor had done.

"You know this is futile."

"Actually, it's not." Robin continued his search, keeping an eye out for any form of movement that could signal the position of his mentor, "We need to find out what we did so that we can gather evidence to counter evidence, then we can clear our names. Totally un-futile."

Even before the words left his mouth, Robin saw a slight movement in the shadows to his left. In a single deft motion, Robin threw a bird-a-rang at it, and tried to leap out of the way. His motion was stopped, however, by a Bat-a-rang attaching his cape to the wall.

"That isn't very whelming, Batman."

The Dark Knight stepped out of the shadows although part of his cape stayed put.

"I could say the same thing."

Robin smirked, glad he had managed to hit **something **other than the wall. He kept moving, ripping his cape in the process, eyes on his mentor, watching him like a wildcat watches prey. Batman met his gaze, and held it.

Batman's eyes narrowed as Robin stepped over a box, and Robin took that as the cue to stop. He carefully took a step back, not entirely sure whether his mentor was trying to help him, or luring him into a trap. Giving Batman a warning glare, and putting one hand over a pocket in his utility belt that contained knockout gas, Robin glanced down at the box before him.

The box was medium in length and height, but what really got Robin's attention was the label.

_**C.J.L. E.**_

Robin knew what the acronym meant. Swiftly, he picked up the box with one hand, while grabbing the knockout pellets with the other. He ducked, narrowly avoiding three Bat-a-rangs before turning and jumping back towards the vent. Robin herd a hiss, then fell, his left foot frozen to the top of a silver cabinet.

Boy Wonder let out an agitated huff, then, sending a slightly apologetic glance at the Dark Knight, he threw two of his pellets. Batman jumped and dodged the fist two, but as he landed a third hit him in the head, realising the gas. Batman gave his protégé a small nod, before hitting the ground unconscious.

Robin, gleaming with pride, broke free of his icy restraints and continued his way towards the vent.

"_I got it!"_

================================================~[,,_,,]:3

"_I got it!"_ Robin's voice rang true through the minds of young justice.

"_Good. Make your way to the rendezvous point. We'll meet up with you soon."_ Aqualad's voice instructed. He nodded to the rest of his team, and they sprang.

Kid Flash broke from the group first, and ran around the other teens, creating a small, wide tornado. Flash immediately began to run after him, but was stopped by a border of fist sized rocks that levitated around the cyclone. The rocks split in two, and began to spin as well. Finally, water rose up, mixing with the rock and air and swirling along with them. Suddenly, Seven tongues of water lashes out at the senior heroes. Each hit its mark, with two hitting Superman. When the attack died down, all six heroes were shocked to see that all seven teens were gone.

"I'll get them." Green Lantern called to his teammates, "You guys see what happened inside."

Meanwhile, the team had met up at an abandoned office building, and were hiding in the basement, catching their breath.

"Are you sure we weren't followed?" panted Artemis, glancing nervously at the door.

"Actually, you were."

Seven pair of eyes turned to face the new voice. Leaning on the door to the exit was Red Arrow, glaring at the tip of his bow.

"But, lucky for you, I took care of it. Green Lantern doesn't and will never know what hit him."

The rest of the team just stood in shock, before Wally decided to break the ice.

" So… how much do you know?" he asked, his happiness at seeing the archer taking second place to the haunting notion that his friend may know something they don't, something horrible.

"Just that the leagues looking for you, and that you did something." Roy held up his hands at the panicked and suspicious looks he received. "Don't worry, I'm not with the league, and even if I was, I wouldn't turn you in. And I that whatever it was you did was pretty bad." Roy narrowed his eyes at the team, "So what was it?"

"We're just about to find out." Robin replied gravely, cutting open the box with his bird-a-rang tip.

"Conner, you've got the DVD player right?"

"Yup." Conner said, giving Dick the DVD player. Dick placed in on a small table in the corner of the room, and opened the box. Inside was a folder, which Dick swiftly tossed to the floor, revealing a blue DVD. Gingerly, he placed the DVD into the player and hit the few buttons that was required.

The screen flickered to life, and the monotone voice of Batman was heard, along with his face Bat-glaring at the viewers.

"This video was made for the purpose of documenting the atrocious crimes committed by the covert team of young heroes, known simply as The Team. The group consists of six teens, ranging in ages from thirteen to sixteen. Their identities have been kept secret, in case this video falls into the wrong hands, or the Team is proved innocent.

They are charge with these crimes: The kidnapping and brutal torture of two civilians, the murder of eight, and stealing high security nano-bots from Wayne industries.

**Case one**:" Batman's face was replaced with a picture; the picture showed a man's body covered in burns of all degrees, dark purple bruises, missing his fingers, and laying in a hospital bed, "James Thomson, age 46, father of two. Professor at Central City University. He was found by Flash laying in the street, bleeding heavily from hands and a cut to the head. After being rushed to hospital, he was found to have two shattered ribs, and internal bleeding. DNA of three members of the team was found all over his chest and head.

**Case two:"** the picture switched again, this time showing a girl missing her legs, her face purple and swollen, and arrow shaped burns covering her arms, "Cassie Truman, age 20, mother of one. Intern at Star City labs. Found floating face up in a slow moving river. Upon being rushed to hospital, she was found to have a pierced lung, and was barely alive. The arrow marks appear to be from specially designed tasers.

Both are recovering, but with sever mental disorders. When questioned about their torture, they both confirmed that the assailants were teens, and that they were not asked any questions.

**Case three:**" the scene changed for the third time, this time showing bodies in a pile on the street, with a note attached to the head of one, "Eight yet to be identified people were found in a Metropolis street, with a note contain each Team member's personal signature, two mounts after the fist two attacks. DNA evidence also revealed that the Team members had assaulted these people. No motive was discovered, and the people do not appear to be related.

**Case four:" **the screen changed again, but this time to a video, "this is an exert from the robbery at Wayne Industries. Employee's confirmed that a lockdown was initiated, and that there was no way to get in or out." The video continued to play as Batman talked, showing Robin somersaulting towards a large glass container in the centre of a small room. Superboy came up beside him and smashed the glass, setting off an alarm. The rest of the team walked up beside the duo, patting Superboy on the back and appearing to congratulated him. Aqualad then took out the small box from the shattered remains of the glass, and turned to the camera. The rest of the team followed suit, turning and posing. One by one, they left, with Kid Flash being the last one out, walking and making faces as he passed.

"The nano-bots were found hanging from Wayne tower the next morning, with a note that said 'From: Your Sidekicks, To: Justice League. =P'. We've kept it a secret from the public and the Team, and we are now moving in for the arrest."

The screen flickered for the last time, then darkened.

Seconds passed by and the teens simply stared in shock at the small screen. Then Megan began to cry softly, followed by Zatanna. Artemis gripped the edge of the table to keep from fainting, while Roy, Wally, and Dick paled to a ghostly white. Conner, the last to react, promptly threw up.

"_Horror," _the identical thought flew into, and lingered, in everyone's mind, _"Doesn't even to begin to describe what happened to those people"._

"_What **we did** to those people."_

* * *

><p>So, SORRY FOR MAKING YOU WAIT SO LONG! I WAS LIKE "YOU <strong>WILL<strong> FINISH THIS CHAPTER!" and that was, like, three weeks ago. SORRY!

But, it's long (more than 4,000 words!), and you FINNALY found out! YAY! Congrats to the 14 people who correctly guessed "All Three" on my poll, have a kumquat hippopautamus.

OH, AND BEFORE YOU GO AND REVIEW, NO SPOILERS IN YOUR REVIEWS PLEASE! 1 spoiler for Auld Acquaintance or beyond=** one HORRIBLE thing I do to the team. You saw what I did to the victims, and that was me on EASY MODE! **so be careful what you say.

REVIEW PLEASE!


	14. Part the Third: Zillah

**You'll never take me alive writers block! Never! *dives into bunker as bomb explodes* IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT!**

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><p><strong>Part the Third: Shadows<strong>

**Zillah**

The girl slowly withdrew the x-ray binoculars from her eyes, placing them silently into the pouch strapped to her waist. A maleficent, melodious laugh escaped her lips as she jumped down form the rooftop she was perched on. Melting into the shadows as she hit the ground, she calmly made her way towards her prey.

**O o****  
><strong>**/¯¯/_**

**\_\**

Dick was the first to awaken from the shock. Leaning down, he rested his elbows on his knees, and placed his palms over his eyes.

"_Something was… wrong in that video," _he thought dismally, _"and not just what we 'did'. Something more, but what?" _

Dick thought harder, removing his hands from his eyes and wiping then slowly up to his hair, moving them until they cupped around his neck. He replayed the video of them in his mind, searching with his mind eye for anything out of the ordinary.

"Shadows." Robin whispered.

"What?" a sick-sounding Conner asked, looking up at the younger (or older…) hero.

"The shadows!" Robin exclaimed, jumping to his feet. The rest of his team start up at him with dazed, confused expressions.

"On the video, when we left Wayne tech, we didn't have shadows!" Robin explained, hyper at the sudden revelation.

"Watch!"

Robin rewound the video until it showed them all looking at the camera. When they all turned to leave, he jabbed his finger at the screen, "There!" he exclaimed.

The rest of the team stood dumbfounded. They were flabbergasted that the Boy Wonder could have figured this out.

"But why could that be?" Red Arrow questioned, "The case has a shadow, so there's obviously light in the room."

"Plus," Robin continued, "Look at us. We're…uh…"

"Darker?" suggested Superboy.

"Yeah," Zatanna agreed, "Like a shadow is covering you all."

No sooner had the words left the magician's mouth then a melodious giggle was heard throughout the room. The team was instantly alert; Artemis and Red Arrow strung their bows, both turning to face the only entrance to the room, a lone stairway. Robin had bird-a-ranges in his hands looking instinctively to the roof, preparing for an attack from above. Zatanna mumbled something too soft to hear, and two bright balls of yellow plasma appeared in both of her hands. Miss Martian's eyes lit up green, and Superboy and Kid Flash balled their fists. Aqualad's hands practically leaped to his water bearers, a mace and a sword in his hands just as fast. They waited, the seconds ticked by like hours, but not another sound was heard.

"Superboy," Aqualad ordered quietly, "go upstairs and see if you can find anything."

Conner tensed involuntarily. "No." he stated quietly, the word coming out as a squeaky whisper. The team looked at him quizzically. Aqualad began to ask why, but was stopped by a look from Megan. She floated gently over to where Conner was standing, and gave him a small, if strained, smile.

"_It's okay Conner." _Megan said, picking up on Superboy's fear, _"I promise that we'll all be here when you get back. There's probably nothing up there, it's just a precaution."_ She smiled at him, gently taking his hand in hers.

Conner mentally shook himself. "_Don't let what Superman said get to you. He just said it to make you crack. If your friends wanted to get rid of you, they'd have done it already. I still don't wanna go… wait!"_

"What's that?" Superboy asked, tilting his head in an attempt to focus his hearing. "Do you guys hear that?"

"No," Artemis replied, dragging out the word, "What was it?"

As Superboy opened his mouth to reply, a harmonious laugh once again rang in the building.

"That would probably be me." A girls voice answered from the shadows.

The team spun towards the noise, and saw the girl materialize from the shadows.

She was of average height, her black, long-sleeved shirt was covered in glistening, midnight blue scales arranged in curved patters* that ran all the way down her shirt, and continued to swirl around her left pant leg. Her right pant leg was partially covered by an extension of her shirt, and further hidden by the bottom of a grey pouch that peeked out of the extension. Both of her hands where covered in black and blue, fingerless, leather gloves. Dark black hair flowed down to her shoulders; the same blue of her outfit was streaked in flames that appeared to dance in her hair when she moved. Two small braids wrapped around her head like a tiara, blue strands mixing with the black ones in a beautiful yet ominous dance. She smiled, revealing two rows of sharp, feline-like teeth.

"Hello." she called cheerfully, extending her hand in greeting.

The eight heroes wasted no time in rushing towards her, but before even Kid Flash could get to her, she'd disappeared.

The girl re-appeared standing in another shadow across the room.

"Well that was rude." She scolded.

The heroes spun around, dumbfounded. Recovering from their shock quickly, Miss Martian linked up the team.

"_Attack plan: Delta"_ Aqualad commanded.

The team moved into position, Kid Flash running forward first.

"Ohhh! Are we playing a game? How fun!" the girl exclaimed. A split second before Kid Flash would have hit her, the mystery girl melted into the shadow she was already standing in, then re-appeared in Kid's shadow.

"Easy there tiger." She taunted, leaning in close to his head.

Various members of the team then all attacked at once, Artemis and Red Arrow shooting foam-arrows, Robin launching his bird-a-rangs, Miss Martian threw a nearby chair.

Zatanna yelled "dleihs!" and a dark-gold barrier surrounded the puzzling girl. Aqualad shot waster out of both his water bearers, while Superboy rose his fist and ran. Kid, although briefly taken aback, spun around, sweeping his leg on the ground in an attempt to knock her off her feet.

The girl laughed and disappeared easily dodging all the simultaneous attacks.

"My turn!" she called playfully, rising from her original shadow.

"Be still!" she yelled, and the team felt their feet become glued to the floor.

"Turn!"

All seven teens, and the one adult, spun to face her.

The girl smiled a twisted smile, and the team noticed for the first time her piercing, violet eyes.**

"Capture."

The shadows of the team seemed to react to this command, and before the team new what was happening, the shadows literally leapt up and ensnared their owners.

Dick bit back a scream, his breath catching in his throat. He felt shocks run up and down his body, and drills going into his head. A bright red light flashed before his eyes, and he heard the echoing screams, screams that were all too familiar to him.

Wally felt his legs slowly begin to numb, and he began to panic. However, worse was yet to come. The numbness was rapidly replaced with sharp pain, like thousands of tiny needles stabbing into his legs over and over again. The pain spread slowly to the rest of his body, and despite himself he let out a scream of agony.

Artemis quickly drew in a breath and held it, hoping that putting her focus away from the pain she experienced. But the action only drew worse consequences, as the feeling of being crushed alive grew more intense. Silent tears fell from her eyes as a familiar low, mocking laugh assaulted her ears.

Kaldur stood up strait, like the solider he was trained to be. His resolve thinned, as the feeling of his skin drying slowly increased. He closed his eyes, imagining his skin shrivelling up, peeling away. His breath began to hitch, and he thought he could feel his lungs shrinking. Never in his life had he longed for water more than at that moment, and he doubted he would ever long for it this much again.

Conner bit his lip so hard it bled. Agonizing pain shot through his body every time he breathed, but when he tried to hold his breath, the pain increased. He tried to fight the hold, but it was too strong, even for him. The realization left him queasy.

Megan had never felt such heat. It swirled around her, lapping at her skin, each flame burning into her. She tried to look around, tried to escape, but she was rooted, nothing she did would free her, and in her haste to escape she reached out to her friends with a strangled mental cry of help. Regret instantly washed over her, as the combined pain of the entire team crashed into her like a wave, and she pulled back, her current pain feeling like a refuge from all the others.

The girl watched all of this and laughed, snapping her fingers sharply. At once, all the pain ceased, but six teens stood gasping for breath. Zatanna and Roy were horrified, being forced to watch their friends suffer at the hands of a girl no older than they (AN: Zatanna that is).

"You probably have many questions." The girl said, flicking her hand. A shadow floated up to where she pointed, and she jumped onto it, sitting cross-legged and looking down on them.

"I'm start with who I am. The name you may give to the person who inflicted that little number on you, is Zillah. If you're wondering, it comes from the Hebrew word meaning 'shade' or 'shadow'. I'm the one who was behind all this. Surprise!" Zillah spread her arms wide.

"Question two… well this isn't really a question, so much as me deciding to tell you what I've been doing. Ah well, potato, potato***. I'll answer that soon, but for now we've got places to go, people to kidnap. Come."

With that simple command, she walked up the stairs and out of the building.

All heroes, to their great surprise, followed, trailing her like awe-struck puppies. It made them all simultaneously sick.

As Zillah walked, down the streets of Gotham, she began to explain herself.

"So, I'm watching the news a few months ago, and I realize how much the Justice league has done for everyone. Made me sick, seeing how much good they do. So I decided to do something about it." She turned her head slightly to look back at them, "Now, I'm not **nearly** powerful enough to take control of them the way I took control of you, so I decided that I needed a different approach. I thought to myself 'Alright Zillah, how can you hurt the heroes without actually **hurting** them?' At that moment, I was struck by an epiphany. 'The sidekicks!' I thought, 'I'll hurt the sidekicks!'"

Zillah turned back to watch where she was going, occasionally glancing upwards. As the posse entered a complex series of ally-ways, her voice dropped to a whisper, "So, I hid in Robin's shadow for a few hours, and what did I know, he led me right to all of you, gathered in one place like plums in pudding! It was then I decided to not just hurt you, but make you hurt others, then let the league deal with you. Pretty brilliant huh?"

She stopped and turned to face her audience, and as she did, Roy spit on her.

"Ew." Zillah stated simply. "Well, since you were so kind as to let me know how you feel about me, you can go get the league, and lead them to your friends little endeavour. But, we don't know where or what that's going to be, do we? Ah well, that the fun part isn't it? Now go!"

Roy unwillingly turned, and ran feeling his feet take him to the nearest zeta-tube. He hoped he would be back before someone else got hurt.

"And do you know what the best part is?" Zillah continued, "The best part is, you couldn't ever prove it was me, and not you!" she began to laugh, "My powers allow me to control what you do, but not how you do it. So all of your memories, all of your moves, all your powers were used at full potential! Then, it was a simple matter of erasing your memories so that you didn't go cry like babies to your mentors. After all, that would ruin the fun!"

To say that the team was horrified would be an understatement. But they weren't given much time to reflect on this, as Zillah's head turned sharply to the left. Walking down the street, was a girl with brown shoulder length hair, wearing an "I love Aquaman" tee shirt.

"Her." Zillah commanded silently, "Follow, lure then capture. Go!"

The team crept silently towards the unsuspecting girl, praying that Roy would get the league before their shadow-controlled bodies did anything they'd regret.

* * *

><p>I'm back! Reason I was gone? Well, long story short, Writers block got a new ally called "Life" and Life already had a lot of allied, and they all attacked me at the same time. Ya.<p>

* Not sure if you noticed, but Toothless in How To Train Your Dragon has these grey designs all over his body. The same designs are on her shirt.

** I don't know about you, but when Strange girls form out of shadows, I don't immediately notice what colour her eyes are. Maybe it's just me.

*** Pronounced "Po-tae-to" and Po-tah-to" like the expression.

The "I love Aquaman" teeshirt girl is my friend Sally, who , when asked what her favorite justice leauge hero was replied "Aquaman all the way!" She owes me a cookie now.


	15. Part the Third: Scream

* Opens mouth. Closes it.* So we're just gonna pretend the last four months haven't happened. Kay?

* * *

><p><strong>Part the Third: Shadows<strong>

**Scream**

Red Arrow ran wildly through the streets of Gotham, twisting and turning through the dark alleyways towards the nearest Zeta tube. With every step he felt himself becoming more and more in control of his body, but he didn't slow his reckless pace. His friends couldn't afford for him to do that.

"_Last corner",_ Arrow smiled as he realized, "_then I'll be at the cave."_

His joy was cut short however, as he rounded the corner. He felt the force controlling his mind realise, but the pain the sprung from his mind was worse that the feeling of not being in control.

He staggered for a couple of steps, before doubling over in pain, and finally collapsing onto his hands and knees.

After taking a couple of deep, stabilizing breaths, Red Arrow shakily stood up.

"_Come on Harper. You're just a few feet away from the tube. Just… a few… more… steps…"_

He managed to stumble his way into the tattered phone booth, each step increasing his pain.

A familiar bright light encompassed him, and he found him self inside the cave. Slowly, he made his way over to the emergency JL-contactor that was constructed after the 'Red Fiasco'. As his vision started to blur, Roy managed to hit the red contact button.

**O o  
>¯¯/_**

**\_\**

The Justice League was outraged.

"You what?" Captain Marvel exclaimed.

Green Arrow pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Haven't we gone through this?"

"Yes," Wonder woman agreed, " However, you have not yet told us why."

Flash sighed.

"We let the team go with the evidence, because we knew they would go back to who they're working for."

"I still don't understand." Hawkman said, "It's obvious that whoever is the mastermind behind the crimes needs super powered minions," all the mentors' eyes narrowed dangerously, "you may have just given them the means to commit more crimes!"

"How are we even sure that there is a master mind?" Hawkwoman asked

Batman wordlessly turned his back and pulled up a hollo-screen.

"This," he explained, "is the video footage from the robbery at Wayne Industries. If you look closely," Batman paused the video and pointed to the ground below the team, "there aren't any shadows."

"This doesn't prove that they weren't just acting out on their own." Wonder Woman pointed out.

Batman arched an eyebrow. "Doesn't it? Unless I'm mistaken, no one on the team has the ability to make shadows disappear. Also," Batman played the video, and re-paused it when the Kid Flash had turned to leave, "look at his suit. It's darker on the back than it is on the front."

"What are you getting at Batman?" Hawkwoman questioned.

"I believe it is a form of mind control." Martian Manhunter interrupted. "I know of a similar form, known as Warping, that can twist not only your thoughts, but also your memories."

"We're assuming that whoever the team is working for is a special breed of Warper."

Diana opened her mouth to speak again but was cut off by the loud alarm that sounded. The eyes of every member of the league widened in alarm.

Like a ghost, Green Arrow turned and hit the blue "communicate" button located on the console. What he saw shocked him to the bone.

"R-Roy?"

Roy was kneeling with his upper body on the console at the cave. At the mention of his name, he looked up slowly at the monitor. His mouth twisted into a grimace and he clenched his fists as he tried to bring himself to a standing position.

"Team… in trouble…" he managed to hiss as he struggled to stand. "Gotham. North side." With a sudden burst of strength and urgency, Roy managed to stand and look the Justice League in the eye. He held their gaze for less that a second, but managed to convey one last, desperate command before he collapsed.

"Hurry!"

**O o  
>¯¯/_**

**\_\**

The mentors stood awkwardly as they looked down at Red Arrow. He was in the med bay, and would flinch ever so often as if struck.

Dinah sat in a chair by his side, one of her hands hold his gently.

"Nothing is wrong with him on the physical level." Batman informed the room; Dinah breathed a sigh of relief, "However, it appears that his brain is reacting to a form of mental pain, and translating it into physical pain."

"I swear, I'm gonna find the villain who did this to him and make whoever it is wish they'd never been born!" Ollie vowed.

Growling cursed under his breath, Ollie left the room, heading strait for the Zeta tubes. The other mentors followed, worried about their own charges.

"Giovanni wait." Batman called, placing a hand on the other mans shoulder. "I need you to stay here."

"What!" Zatara screeched, "My daughter is out there, possibly suffering the same way as Arrow over there, and you expect me to **wait here**?"

"Yes." Came the steely reply. Batman ran his hand over his cowl and sighed, "Look. I know it's hard, but we need J'onn so that we can know the mental capacity of whoever did this, and to combat it. You're the only other one here with the skills and the knowledge to help Roy. I promise that we'll bring back Zatanna as unharmed as possible, but Roy will **die** if he doesn't get help soon."

"And quite honestly," Batman turned his head slightly in the direction of the med bay, " Dinah could use some conscious company."

"Fine." Zatara grumbled, "but so help me, if I find out that my Zatanna has… you know, I will personally hurt everyone you care about in the most sadistic way I can imagine."

With a nod, the two fathers went their separate ways.

**O o  
>¯¯/_**

**\_\**

What the six heroes found disturbed them almost more than anything they'd seen before.

The team was standing in a semi-circle in a large warehouse around a girl who looked to be in her teens. The team was throwing the poor girl around the semi-circle as though she was some sort of ball. The girl was bloodied, her left arm and right leg stuck out at unusual angles, and her face was swollen and red. Brown hair floated in the small puddle of blood on the ground. Her jeans were dark brown from a mixture of dried blood and mud. Long, jagged cuts were drawn into her arms, and bruises darkened any part of her that wasn't covered in her own blood. The warehouse itself was tall and wide, covered in shadows cast by the moons glow and giving the whole scene a darker look.

But the most disturbing part by far was the team themselves. M'gann and Zatanna appeared to be using magic to keep the girl alive and suffering. Conner picked her up and threw her against a wall, and the entire team grinned sadistically when a loud crack, followed by a louder scream was heard. The girl struggled to pick herself off the ground, only to be pushed back down by a jet of water. Just as Kaldur, tattoos sparkling with electricity, was about to touch the path of water leading towards the girl, there was a stern yell.

"Stop!"

The entire team turned to face the voice. Their surprise –and Bruce swore he saw relief- was clearly written on their faces.

"Surrender now or we'll be forced to take you in using any and all means necessary." Superman commanded.

The team got into fighting stances, but before anyone could move, Zatanna turned and ran full speed towards the zeta-tubes.

"_Should we…?"_ Flash thought to the other mentors.

"_No. Let her go." _Martian Manhunter replied. "_She appears to be heading to the zeta-tubes, and the Watchtower can track her and apprehend her from wherever she is going to."_

"_J'onn is right."_ Batman clarified, observing the team while he thought and offhandedly noting that they appeared to be having their own conversation, _"Besides, she is safest away from battle."_

Before anything else could be thought, the team pounced.

**O o  
>¯¯/_**

**\_\**

The battle raged, but it was a blur for the Justice League. They remembered very few things, and what they did remember they didn't think about. But some parts of the battle were particularly strong in the minds of the mentors, and those thoughts they never forgot.

**O o  
>¯¯/_**

**\_\**

Aquaman knew his protégé. He knew that his favourite colour was periwinkle. He knew that he'd had a crush on Tula since he was nine. He knew that his favourite thing to do with water was turn it into a harp and sing love songs when he though no one was watching. Most importantly, he knew that Aqualad wasn't nearly as fast on land as he was underwater. So, when Aqualad came rushing towards him, he was surprised at the speed he possessed. When his water-swords can down, just as Orin knew they would, he blocked them with his wrist guards. What he didn't know was that when Aqualad is kneed in the stomach, his gills pop out and his eyes widen. Or that Aqualad was capable of producing such a loud, silent scream. It was something Orin wished he'd never found out.

Superman didn't know his clone very well. It was the subject of many disagreements between him and every other superhero he knew. So, when the man of steel took to the air and barrelled down towards the boy, he genuinely expected Superboy to fly out of the way. It wasn't until his fists connected with Superboy's body that Clark realised his mistake. Clark never expected to be the cause of such a scream of pain.

Green Arrow knew that both his protégé's were skilled with a bow. If they weren't, they wouldn't be with him. He also knew, that despite their attitude, they would really hurt anyone unless pushed way past their limits. So when Artemis' first few arrows came close to killing him, and when she didn't use any of the special trick arrows they'd designed together, he knew something was seriously off. What Ollie didn't know was that his own aim was also going into the deadly range. So when he spun 360 to dodge a barrage of arrows shot at the same time, he didn't stop to think about where his own arrow was heading. But when he heard the high pinched, surprised scream and saw the small trickle of blood that ran down her arm, Ollie knew that something was off with him too.

Martian Manhunter was good friends with his niece. She wasn't his favourite, he didn't have a favourite, but he'd be lying if he said that he didn't enjoy his time with her. But as she chased him though the Gotham skies, throwing mental attack after mental attack at him, he realised how much he didn't want to hurt her. Finally making up his find, and convincing himself that hurting her now would prevent something worse later on. He stopped and turned. She was flying towards him, an unusual gleam in her eye, and he waited. Quickly extending his arms to grab her, he sent the image of a ball of fire encompassing her into her mind. The attack was successful, but the tortured scream that tore free from her lips hurt him more than anything J'onn ever experienced.

Batman marvelled at his protégé. He was so young, but so skilled. As the brightly coloured teen flipped and danced around the darker costumed man Batman knew he'd made the correct choice in partners. But he was still on the defence, and as much as he hated to, Bruce knew that he'd have to seriously attack soon. So, quickly calculating when the most opportune moment to hit Robin without actually **hurting** the boy, he waited. As Robin jumped in front of Bruce, throwing a swift kick at the older man's head, Batman did as he would in any other situations. He ducked, and as he drew up, threw a sharp uppercut that contacted with Robin's chin. The scream that erupted from Robin could have killed Bruce on the spot.

Flash loved his nephew. He did even before he'd even married Iris. But Barry knew that he couldn't let his love get in the way. As he zoomed throughout the alleyway, dodging the other battles raging around him, he always turned his head to watch Kid Flash chase him. Taking a moment to bitterly smile at the fact that the protégé was chasing the mentor, Barry formulated a plan. A plan that he hated, but an effective plan all the same. Speeding up slightly, he turned to the side and swiped his leg across the ground at a normal speed. As expected Kid tripped falling head over heels once and skidding across the pavement face first. Barry covered his ears when the piercing scream came from his nephew, going twice as long in his accelerated mind.

**O o  
>¯¯/_**

**\_\**

Eventually, both side were lined up again, facing each other in the middle of the warehouse. They stood, each side breathing heavily, Young Justice from fighting much tougher opponents, Justice League from holding back enough not to hurt their kids.

Being the more experienced fighters, and the least tired, Justice League almost began another assault, but one word stopped them.

Young Justice simultaneously took a breath used various gestures to point up, and yelled as loud as they were capable of doing in their current state:

"**Shadows!**"

"_Shadows?" _Aquaman thought, "_Could that mean…"_

The mentors ran toward their charges, but at the last second, threw their punched into the dark sky behind their teens.

To their surprise, however, they were greeted not by the freedom of Young Justice, but with laughter. Young Justice was thrown back and a dark wall* grew from the shadows. The wall covered the entire length and height of the warehouse and had strange, blue loops and twirls were entwined in it.

"So. You figured it out huh?" a female voice said.

The League looked up and saw a girl sitting on a stack of crates previously hidden by the shadows.

"Well then. I guess there's no need to keep up my charade. I'm the reason for all your current problems. No, wait. That's a little too boastful. I'm the reason for their current problems. I'd come shake your hands, but you'd probably just arrest me. So instead, I bid you adios!"

With a flick of her hand, a miniscule piece of the wall broke off and formed a staircase from where the girl stood to the window on the roof. The girl jumped into one end of the staircase and appeared at the other end. Forming the staircase into a sharp spine, she broke the window, using the spike to protect herself from the breaking glass.

"But before I go," she voice rang throughout the warehouse, "a parting gift."

The mentors looked down from the girl towards their partners and were stunned to see the shadows leap from their bodies. Bruce, Barry, Oliver, Orin, J'onn and Clark were petrified to the ground in horror by what happed next.

All six teens fell to the ground, pain written across their faces. The mentors acted quickly, dashing to the wall and banging against it with clenched fists, desperately trying to break the wall and get to their kids. All was silent until vicious laughter fell from the roof, and then five of the six teens started to scream.

The screams were loud, louder and filled with more pain than any of the adults had ever heard come from a child.

Their children.

At that moment, even Superman was yelling for Conner, with a good heap load of curses flung at the villainous girl.

But Batman, amidst the screaming, had noticed something. Robin was fighting. He was on his hands and knees, clearly struggling, but not uttering a single sound. For a moment Bruce felt his heart leap with pride, though he still beat just as viciously at the wall.

The feeling was short lived, as Batman wasn't the only one who noticed Robin's silence.

"So. A tuff guy huh? Well you know the saying." The girl kicked at Robin's ribs repeatedly until he fell on his side gasping. The whites of his mask facing Bruce, Batman could now clearly see is son's face as he struggled to remain silent.

"A bird that can sing, but wont sing," the girl sang, creating a shadow platform and jumping on it before floating around so the she could se Bruce,

"must be **made** to sing."

She jumped off the platform, disappearing into the floor and reappearing at the window. The platform, much to the horror of Bruce, rose significantly, before crashing down on Robin with a loud thud. Robin opened his mouth, a silent scream on his lips. The platform came down once more, shattering into small pieces as Robin screamed just as loud, if not louder, than the others.

**O o  
>¯¯/_**

**\_\**

No one knew how long the mentors stood there, fists pounding against the wall, body slamming into it, doing anything they could to get to the team. Finally, cracks appeared in the wall, and with a few more hits, the wall shattered into small, glass like droplets that melted into the floor. The mentors fell to the ground, before getting up and running to the teens. Young Justice, for their part, had stopped screaming and had begun to shake violently.

When each individual was picked up and held tight by their Superboy, Kid and Artemis tried with all they had to escape. The others all held as tightly as possible. All the teens' eyes were dark and glazed.

Batman quickly activated his communicator.

"Zatarra." He said as stoically as possible

"Batman?" Zattara's voice betrayed his surprise and exhaustion, "Where are you? Zatanna came here and collapsed!"

"Prepare the Med-bay. We're gonna need it."

* * *

><p>* The wall looks kinda like this .caimgres? um=1&hl=en&biw=1024&bih=677&tbm=isch&tbnid=S RMB-pgxPybu_M:&imgrefurl= /32/twilight-princess-review/&docid=kkjnENdMUoPxlM&i mgurl= . &w=822&h=457&ei=CFNiUM HKDeGliQLk6oD4AQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=98&vpy=397&dur=253&hovh=167&hovw=301&tx=198&t y=129&sig=102414800635423790068&page=2&tbnh=121&tbnw=217&start=14&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:14,i:117

Ya ya. It's a long link.

Here's a Promise: I'll never just stop this story. Promise. I do have every chapter planned out, and I have a goal with this story. The updates WILL be a bit slow. But they'll never stop. Until the end. Then they'll end.

REVIEW!

PS: ILoveAquaman: THE CHARACTER DOESN'T HAVE TO LOOK JUST LIKE YOU! SHE CAN HAVE SHOULDER LEGNTH HAIR IF SHE WANTS TO!


	16. Part the Third: Rage

**So... when I said I'd be faster...well... I started writing this chapter the week after I finished the last one, but then I stopped, then I hated what I'd written, then my computer was a glitch head. But now I've got a new computer, so I though "It's Christmas! Why the triforce not!" So here you are!**

**Oh, it occurred to me that I've never really given you a time frame for these events, so here it is:**

**Now, as this story is sorta/kind AU-ish, I won't give you dates from the cannon story. Just how long it took from point A to point B. Oh, and I have no IDEA how far it actually takes to get from different states from where to where by train, so just disregard it if it's totally wrong. Now without further ado…**

**Movie night -**** interrogation: 12 hours**

**Interrogation ****- Escape: 4h**

**Escape -**** Formation of Plan/ Blue valley stuff: 1.5h**

**Blue Valley Stuff -**** Train ride: 6.5h (sleeping, remember?)**

**Train ride into Metropolis: 2h**

**Evidence Gathering/ Chase scene: 27 minuets**

**Train to Gotham: 4h**

**Evidence Gathering/ Revealing: 1h**

**The whole Zillah thing: 4h**

**Total time up to now: 1 day, 11 hours, 27 minuets. Annnnd counting!**

**Healing from battle: Wouldn't you like to know MWAHAHAHA!**

**And now you're caught up! Whew, seems like it'd be more, y'know? It sorta makes sense… Whatever. It works.**

* * *

><p><strong>Part the Third: Shadows<strong>

**Rage**

The team woke up on stone cold tables in the middle of the cave. As one, they gasped, sitting up and staring at each other. There were a few seconds of awkward silence, as they realized the positions they were in.

"Uh, guys," Wally stage whispered, "do you realize that this is the same formation we woke up after…"

The room fell into tense silence again; no one was willing to admit what seemed obvious.

"No way guys." Dick said, shaking his head, "That'd be way too good to be true."

"Unfortunately, Robin is correct."

Martian Manhunter and Batman walked into the room. Batman walked past the team wordlessly, pulling up a holographic computer screen. J'onn stood a few paces from the doorframe, and began to speak again.

"What you have witness over the past wasn't a simulation,"

Batman scoffed at the notion of even thinking of doing a simulation again.

"It was real. After the battle, we brought you here to heal. For the past two weeks-"

"Whoa whoa whoa, slow down J'onn" Artemis interrupted, "It's only been, like, two days since we were accused."

"You've been in a coma-like trance for ten days."

The team was floored. M'gann looked like she was about to cry, Kaldur stiffened noticeably, Artemis suddenly found her shoes very interesting, Dick rubbed his temples, Wally pushed his fingers through his already wild hair, and Conner's eyes widened slightly.

"No way." Wally breathed.

"If I may ask," Kaldur started, voice quiet, "why are we here in the simulation room and not in the med-bay?"

J'onn opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by an exasperated cry of "What do you mean they're we can't see them yet!"

The team looked past J'onn and saw that Batman had crossed the room and was standing in the doorway across from the other mentors. From the reaction on Flash and Green Arrow's face, it appeared that Batman was explaining something. After a couple of seconds, Surprise was the most prominent expression, followed closely by anger. They turned to leave as J'onn started talking.

"As we discovered with Roy and Zatanna,"

"They're here?"

"the pain the villainess inflicted upon you was merely physical. She tricked you're brains into thinking you were in pain, and your bodies acted accordingly. However, your minds began to deteriorate after she left. To keep you alive, we put you in temporary comas. The comas were only indented to last for a few days, but they lasted for much longer and, as a final resort, it was decided that I would go into your minds and 'shock' you awake. Now, here we are."

"Oh Uncle J'onn'" M'gann cried, flinging herself at her uncle, but then stopping short inches from his arms, "Wait, are we still under arrest? Oh, I'm sorry, I'll just umm…"

M'gann stepped back as J'onn stepped forward, embracing her in a tight hug. The rest of the team turned away, letting them have their moment, secretly a little jealous.

"No, you are no longer under arrest." J'onn said as he broke the hug, "The league has deemed you punished enough for what you have done."

"But we didn't do it!" Conner exploded, "We were being controlled! Manipulated like puppets! How could you 'deem us worthy of punishment' for something we didn't do?"

J'onn sighed, "Two people are severely traumatized because of what you, albeit unwillingly, did to them. Eight people are dead, eight families grieving because for the same reason. While we understand that you couldn't be help responsible, the cost was simply to high to let you completely free. Until the battle, you would have been put in separate prisons almost no matter what for an undetermined amount of time."

The team sat silently, each processing the new information.

"Recognized: Batman 02, Flash 04, Aquaman 06"

"Hey!" Superboy exclaimed as the names continued to be announced, "Where are they going?"

"We," Man-hunter replied, voice uncharacteristically dark, "have business to attend to. **Stay. Here."** He then turned and left the room, leaving a shocked team standing in the now eerily empty room.

**O o****  
><strong>**/¯¯/_**

**\_\**

"You sure this is the place Bats?"

"Positive."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Superman stepped toward the dull, metal door of the warehouse. He gripped its center with one hand and promptly threw the door aside. The ware house contained a typical interior; boxes lay strewn about, long abandoned machines rusted along the walls. The grey paint was chipping revealing the cement underneath.

As one, the Justice League Mentors stepped into the building. As one they spotted their target.

Flash ran up to her, teeth clenched, angry words sitting on the tip of his tongue begging to be realised. Instead, he threw all his rage, his hurt, all the emotions he'd been feeling for the past two weeks into a punch that landed firmly on her shoulder, and produced a very satisfying crunch.

Said girl, shocked as she was, flew across the room and landed into the wall, producing yet another satisfying sound. As Zillah picked herself off the ground to see her attackers, she had to first roll out of the way of three incoming Bat-a-rangs.

She threw up a shadow shield to block an angry Martian's telepathically thrown machine, but it could not stop the water that sprang from the burst pipe behind her. The water formed a thick rope and bound her. As she struggled, an arrow tip grazed her left check, missing her eye by inches but still leaving a deep cut. Zillah threw a shadow bubble around her, successfully breaking the water rope.

"So," she panted, "you found me eh? I suppose it was a matter of time. How are the brats doing? Are they dea-?"

She was cut off by a Bat-a-rang breaking through her bubble and lodging itself in her arm. Frantically, she pulled it out, and, turning fearful eyes to the livid heroes in front of her, threw it on the ground and disappeared into her silhouette.

"So sorry, but I have to bid you adieu. Like I told your little whelps, I'm not strong enough to even defend myself against you, let alone fight you. So I'm gonna go before you 'make me wish I was dead' or something equally corny. Ba-bye."

Superman chose that moment to turn the lights fully on, while Batman drew more Bat-a-rangs, Green Arrow strung his bow, and the rest of the league got into their fighting positions.

"Nice try." The shadow said arrogantly, and the heroes could just hear the smirk in her voice, "But you've actually given me my escape route. Thanks blue-man."

With that final farewell, the young villainess, still in shadow form, jumped from wall to wall, finally disappearing through the open window on the roof.

Superman and Martian Man-hunter began to fly after her, but were stopped by the steely words of Batman.

"No. It's useless to find her in the middle of the night, in her element."

"But Batman," Green Arrow started angrily.

"We cannot simple allow her to roam free." Interrupted Aquaman.

"We won't." growled the Bat, "What we need to do now is regroup at the watchtower and form a new plan, because this one **obviously** didn't work."

"Batman is right." Superman agreed, "Not only that, but the kids are awake now. They'll be able to tell us more about this girl. Let her live in her ignorance, she'll only nurse her wounds and cower in some hovel like a mindless animal."

"We can use that time to formulate a stronger plan." Man-hunter continued.

"Then let's go!" Flash shouted, running to the nearest Zeta-tube, "Last one to the Zeta tubes goes on disaster relief with Plastic man!"

**Bonus**

"Hey," Robin said after the adults had left, "J'onn said that Roy and Zatanna were here right?"

The team nodded slowly.

"Well, let's go find them!"

Wally shrugged, got off his island, and walked over to friend. Together they started to walk towards the infirmary. The rest of the team followed the duo.

"You just wanna see you girlfrie-Ouch! Hey!"

* * *

><p>Hah! you should have seen your face at the beginning! Priceless (i think) Did you really think that I'd make it a simulation?! ha! Nope!<p>

PS: I figured out why I'm taking so long to update! Along with all the reasons stated above, I took a look at my writting schedual and there's only 3 or 4 more chpaters left! The horror! Since this story is like my baby (there isn't a time when I'm not thinking about it) I don't want it to end! But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Till next time, (whenever that may be...)

Review and ...Stuff,

AdenaWolf, sing off!


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